Lecture 11

Question 1

The idea that when one’s visual field is altered (e.g., when images are shifted to the left or right from their normal locations while wearing special glasses), one’s brain adapts to new perceptions automatically and unconsciously.

Answer 1

Perceptual adaptation

Question 2

According to Helmholtz, the idea that perceptual adaptation and other perceptual phenomena might result from a process in which there is an unconscious adoption of certain logical rules.

Answer 2

Unconscious inference

Question 3

Define Helmholtz’s theory of color vision

Answer 3

Trichromatic theory: human color vision involves three color receptors (RGB)

Question 4

Hue is the ___________ ________

Answer 4

dominant wavelength

Question 5

Value is the ____________

Answer 5

brightness

Question 6

Chroma is the _________

Answer 6

purity

Question 7

The phenomenon studied by Maxwell and others, showing that varying mixtures of spectral light can produce the same color sensations as pure spectral colors.

Answer 7

color mixing

Question 8

A Scottish scientist who studied color vision and who provided the most complete analysis of color mixing in 1855.

Answer 8

James Clerk Maxwell

Question 9

Pairs of spectral colors (e.g., red‐green and blue‐violet) that, when mixed together, create a sensation of white light indistinguishable from sunlight.

Answer 9

Complementary colors

Question 10

Primary colors are?

Answer 10

The spectral colors red, green and blue, which are the building blocks for all kinds of color sensation

Question 11

Who was Thomas Young?

Answer 11

An English scientist who, like Helmholtz, suggested that the retina contains three types of receptor cells necessary for color vision.

Question 12

Young‐Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory?

Answer 12

Idea proposed by Thomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz suggesting that there are three types of receptor cells in the eyes, each one responding to a different spectral hue, making color vision possible.

Question 13

Helmholtz proposed that the ________, part of the inner ear, is responsible for frequency analysis in hearing.

Answer 13

cochlea

Question 14

Helmholtz proposed that the __________ __________, housed within the cochlea of the inner ear, responds selectively to the different frequency components of sound waves.

Answer 14

basilar membrane

Question 15

Describe the place (resonance) theory of hearing

Answer 15

Cochlea fibers vary in length and are tuned to vibrate at specific frequencies.
Different positions along cochlea determine what pitch we hear

Question 16

what is fourier analysis?

Answer 16

mathematical decomposition of any complex waveform into simple sinusoidal components

Question 17

Frequency is a _________ property

Answer 17

physical

Question 18

Pitch is a __________ property

Answer 18

psychological

Question 19

Helmholtz invented the _______ _____ to produce tones of any specified frequency.

Answer 19

double siren

Question 20

He used this device to map out the mathematical relationship between ________ and ______.

Answer 20

frequency and pitch

Question 21

According to Helmholtz, what determines the pitch we perceive?

Answer 21

that the location (place) of maximum vibration along the basilar membrane determines the pitch we perceive.

Question 22

Complex sounds have many components; the activation produced by the ______ ____ (called the fundamental frequency) determines the pitch.

Answer 22

lowest one

Question 23

What is nonlinear interaction?

Answer 23

Helmholtz proposed that nonlinear interaction in the cochlea re-introduces the missing fundamental. (We now know this hypothesis was incorrect).

Question 24

What determines if we hear a musical tone or noise?

Answer 24

The pitch of a musical tone depends on the number of impulses which take place in a given time; the more there are in the same time the higher or sharper is the tone.”

Question 25

What is the telegraph machine metaphor?

Answer 25

• Problem: how to separate nerve propogation speed from other factors?
 Telegraph machine metaphor
1. Signal travels through sensory nerves
2. Response travels through motor nerves
to the muscles
3. Central nervous system ‘processes of perceiving and willing’

Question 26

_______ _____ _____ in humans: subjects pressed a button in response to tactile stimulus

Answer 26

simple reaction time

Question 27

Who was Franciscus Corneilus Donders?

Answer 27

Dutch guy who measured simple reaction time to visual stimuli

Question 28

What study did Donders perform with participants?

Answer 28

presented a series of stimuli and asked subjects to respond to only one, specified beforehand.
• The extra time provided a measure of the mental act of discrimination.

Question 29

____________ ________ is the time taken to discriminate the complex stimulus minus the time to discriminate the simple stimulus.

Answer 29

subtractive method

Question 30

Define choice reaction time

Answer 30

several different stimuli are presented and the response to each one is different.

Question 31

T/F: The time required to make a choice is determined by subtracting both simple and discrimination reaction times from the choice reaction time.

Answer 31

true

Question 32

Describe localization of function

Answer 32

relationship btw psychological functions and specific structures in the brain and nervous system.

Question 33

How would Descartes describe localization of function?

Answer 33

the mind could not be localized in the brain because its structures were paired; how could consciousness occupy two places at the same time?

Question 34

What did Descartes say about the pineal gland?

Answer 34

It’s the center of the mind

Question 35

Who discovered the distinction between gray and white matter?

Answer 35

Thomas Willis (John Locke’s teacher)

Question 36

What were some emerging viewpoints of Locke’s time?

Answer 36

1. Higher cognitive functions are mediated by the central nervous system.
2. Sensation and perception can be measured and mapped out using methods developed in other branches of science.
3. Concept of a threshold, the minimum amount of energy needed to elicit a change in perception.
4. Elaboration of the laws of association.

Question 37

Describe Muller’s doctrine of specific nerve energies?

Answer 37

– sensory nerves can be stimulated in different ways to produce the same characteristic energy resulting in the same sensation.
– Rejected theory of animal spirits; hypothesized that nerve impulses were electrical; hence, too rapid to be measurable.

Question 38

What did Franz Gall do?

Answer 38

Created phrenology, surface of the skull mirrors the exaggeration of functional areas in the cortex.
• Bumps on the skull are associated with faculties that are prominent in individuals.

Question 39

Who studied Ablation of studies of animals, and said that cerebral hemispheres function together?

Answer 39

Paul Flourens

Question 40

What did Broca discover when a guy no longer possessed the ability to speak?

Answer 40

lesion in the middle of the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere (also hemisphereic lateralization)

Question 41

What did Carl Wernicke discover?

Answer 41

different pattern of language breakdown with injury to the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere, which he described as sensory aphasia.

Question 42

What did Galvani discover?

Answer 42

frog’s leg would twitch when the inside and outside of the muscle were connected in series with two different metals.

Question 43

What did Emil Reymond discover?

Answer 43

the AP (nerve impulse)

Question 44

T/F: Fritsch and Hitzig (1870) showed that electrical stimulation of regions of the cortex in dogs produced specific responses of individual muscle groups (motor strip).

Answer 44

True

Question 45

Lashley (1890-1959) coined the term ____________ to describe the capacity of an intact part of the brain to take over the (memory) functions of an damaged portion.

Answer 45

equipotentiality