Chapter 2 class notes Flashcards
What is Masking?
The difficulty in seeing one stimulus when its quickly replanced by a second stimulus that occupies the same or adjacent spatial locations
What is backward masking?
If a brief stimulus (like a picture of a face or dot) it shown very quickly, and another image quickly follows in the same spot, the first image will disappear from concious awareness
What is Object-substitution masking?
The stimulus is surrounded by other stimuli. If these surrounding stimuli last longer than the main stimulus, it becomes invisible. However, if they disappear at the same time, the main stimulus remains visible.
Explain the Robinson et al. experiment where the goal was to see if olfaction interacts with vision
Participants saw images of objects, some of which had associated smells (e.g., a rose with the smell of a rose). Some images were paired with a matching smell, a non-matching smell, or no smell. Some images were masked to make them harder to see, while others were clearly visible.
What were the results of the Robinson experiment
The masking worked—it made images harder to see.
Odors affected vision, but only for women:
When the smell matched the image (e.g., rose scent before a rose image), women detected the image better.
When the smell didn’t match (e.g., mint scent before a rose image), women had a harder time seeing the image.
Men’s performance stayed the same no matter the smell.
What is Sensorineural hearing loss?
Permanent (sometimes not) hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea or auditory nerve
What is Conductive hearing loss?
Non permanent hearing loss caused by the inability of sound to reach the cochlea (can be caused by clogged pathways from earwax or
What does an Audiologist do?
They specialize in diagnosing hearing impairments and have a doctrate in audiology
An audiometer is used to assess hearing loss, how does it work?
It presents tones of different frequencies (from low to high pitch). A patient eill lsiten to the tones presented and they indicate if they heard the tone in the left or right ear.
What methods will an audiologist use when asessing hearing loss
They use constant stimuli and a litle bit of the forced choice method.
What is the goal of hearing aids?
To reduce background noise and amplify human voices, improving speech clarity.
What test is performed by optometrists to assess vision?
The snellen chart (where patients read letters from a distance) they need glasses if vision is 20/60
What is the equasion for Webers law? What is it trying to measure?
K (constant) = JND/S (standard stimulus intensity)
Its trying to measure if the difference threshold is the same for all standard stimuli
What are 2 cons about Webers law
Cant be applied to stimuli close to the absolute threshold, and breaks down at higher stimulus intensities (eg. cant hold 300ibs with hand
What is ithe difference between indirect and direct scaling
Direct scaling is when people directly rate something, like saying how much pain they feel on a scale from 1 to 10.
Indirect scaling is when researchers figure out the scale based on patterns in people’s choices or reactions, without asking them directly. (usually yes or no questions)
What is magnitude estimation?
Where a person is presented with a stimulus and a certain value is assigned to it (eg. certain brightness has a value of 10), then another value is presented and the observer has to relate it with the first one (eg. a 5, half as bright as the first light)
(related to stevens power law)
What is a criticism of magnitude estimation? How do you solve it?
It may tell us how people use numbers instead of how they judge stimuli (eg. is 1-2 a bigger difference or 2-3, technically 1-2 bc its double)
solution: cross-modality matcging
How does cross-modality matching work?
one sense us used to provide a measure of intensity in another sense eg. grip squeeze to indicate magnitude)
A stimulus that is below threshold may be consciously detected up to ___% of the time. However, a subliminal stimulus is ______ threshold and doesnt enter awareness
49%
below
Are backwards messages perceived as a subliminal?
No
