Chapter 5 part 1

Question 1

What is sensation?

Answer 1

the detection of physical energy by sense organs (raw sensory inputs)

Question 2

what is perception?

Answer 2

brain’s interpretation of raw sensory inputs, influenced by the context.

Question 3

what is transduction?

Answer 3

when the nervous system converts external stimulus into electric signals in neurons

Question 4

what are sense receptors?

Answer 4

specialized cell transduces specific stimulus

Question 5

what is synesthesia?

Answer 5

the experience of cross modal sensations (tasting colour)

Question 6

what is grapheme colour?

Answer 6

seeing a 6 as always red

seeing a 5 as always blue

Question 7

what is lexical taste?

Answer 7

words have assoc. tastes

Question 8

Cross modal cortical processing

Answer 8

producing different perceptions than presented by either modality
- relates to the McGurk Effect

Question 9

What is the McGurk Effect?

Answer 9

integration of audio and visual info to process spoken language.
hearing “ba”, see” “ga”, perceive “da”

Question 10

the binding problem

Answer 10

• wondering how information is binded

Question 11

hypotheses to the binding problem

Answer 11

rapid coordinated activity across multiple cortical association areas

Question 12

what is psychophysics?

Answer 12

• how we perceive basic stimuli based on physical characteristics
• physiology provides sensations, observer provides perceptions

Question 13

what is the absolute threshold?

Answer 13

-the lowest level of a stimulus we can detect 50% of the time when no other like stimuli are present

Question 14

how are threshold and sensitivity connected?

Answer 14

the lower the threshold, the greater the sensitivity

Question 15

signal detection theory

Answer 15

• happens when the absolute treshold is not fixed

- e.g high background noise, we need to increase signal

Question 16

in the signal detection theory, what is meant by decision criteria?

Answer 16

a standard of how certain we are of a stimulus before we say we can detect it

Question 17

what affects “decision critera??

Answer 17

depending on mood, expectancy, fatigue

Question 18

response biases

Answer 18

tendency to make one type of guess over another when in doubt of strength of signal (present or unpresent)

Question 19

Case study of response biases

Answer 19

Green and Swets

- navy radar example

Question 20

JND

Answer 20

• Just noticeable difference (JND)

- the smallest change in the intensity that we can detect.

Question 21

What is Weber’s Law? (relates to JND)

Answer 21

constant proportional relationship between the JND and the original stimulus intensity.
the stronger the stimulus, the bigger the change needed for change
e.g flast light on a sunny day vs. at night

Question 22

subliminal perception

Answer 22

the processing of sensory information that occurs below conscious awareness (limen)
- the stimulus is so little, it’s lower than the absolute threshold

Question 23

examples of subliminal triggers when making extraordinary claims

Answer 23

• using emotional words (using words like anger)
• using morality (using religious words)
• confidence in ideas (using angry profs)

Question 24

sensory adaptation

Answer 24

activation is the greatest at the start of a stimulus; followed by a decline in strength
- what’s happening is the sensory receptor is adapting to the stimulus