Chapter 4 Test

Question 1

What is the difference between sensation and perception?

Answer 1

Perception follows sensation. Sensation is the sensory organs and neural impulses detecting something. Perception is the interpretation and analysis of sensation

Question 2

What is bottom-up and top-down processing?

Answer 2

Top-Down: Development of pattern recognition with use of context clues

Bottom up: Development of perception solely through sensory information

Question 3

What is selective attention?

Answer 3

Ability to attend to only a limited amount of sensory information at a time(related to multitasking and whether we can do it or not)

Question 4

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 4

psychological lack of attention to something due do already being focused on something else(think of gorilla in video)

Question 5

What is change blindness?

Answer 5

A phenomenon the occurs when a visual change is introduced but isn’t noticed by the observer

Question 6

What is absolute threshold?

Answer 6

The intensity of a stimulus required for someone to sense it 50% of the time

Question 7

What is the signal detection theory?

Answer 7

A theory stating that the detection of a stimulus depends on the intensity of the stimulus and the physical/psychological state of the individual that may or may not sense it

Question 8

What are subliminal messages?

Answer 8

A signal or message designed to pass below the normal limits of perception that is supposed to be undetected consciously but detected unconsciously

Question 9

What does it mean to prime someones memory? What is an example of it?

Answer 9

An unconscious form of human memory concerned with perceptual identification of words/objects. Priming involves activating particular representations of words or objects in this form of memory before performing a task. An example is that if you show a person the color yellow before being asked to identifying seeing a banana, they will identify the banana faster because they saw the color yellow

Question 10

What is Weber’s Law?

Answer 10

A law stating that when stimuli make a change that is just noticeable, the stimuli must differ by a proportional amount, not a constant amount

Question 11

What is transduction?

Answer 11

The process of turning sensory information into neural impulses for the brain and the nervous system to process

Question 12

What is the trichromatic color theory?

Answer 12

A theory that says we have three types of cones in our retina. We have cones that detect red, blue and green and from a combination of those three colors we can see almost every color

Question 13

What is the opponent process theory?

Answer 13

A theory that states that we have three types of receptor cones and they each handle a pair of colors (red/green, yellow/blue, and black/white). If one sensor/color is firing, it slows the other from firing. The theory does a good job at explaining afterimages and color blindness

Question 14

What are feature detectors?

Answer 14

Nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus such as shape angle or movement

Question 15

What are rods and cones?

Answer 15

Rods: Responsible for vision at low light levels, low color, low spatial acuity

Cones: Responsible for vision at high levels of light, capable of color vision and have high spatial acuity

Question 16

Foveal vision?

Answer 16

Foveal vision refers to vision in the center of the field of vision, where visual acuity is at its highest.

Question 17

What is conductive hearing loss? Is is treatable?

Answer 17

Conductive hearing loss occurs when there is a problem conducting sound waves anywhere along the route through the outer ear or middle ear. Implants/repairs are possible

Question 18

What is sensorineural hearing loss? Is it treatable?

Answer 18

Hearing loss caused by damage to the inner ear or the nerve from the ear to the brain(can not be repaired, from concerts, loud sounds, etc)

Question 19

What is your Vestibular sense? Where is it located?

Answer 19

Your Vestibular sense senses the orientation of your body, located in the inner ear.

Question 20

What is the Gate Control theory?

Answer 20

A theory about pain perception indicates that the spinal cord contains a type of neurological “gate” which opens and closes to either allow or block pain signals to travel to the brain.

Question 21

What is sensory interaction?

Answer 21

Sensory interaction refers to the interaction of the senses to each other and how they influence each other. Taste and smell are two senses that work together

Question 22

What is perceptual organization?

Answer 22

A set of principles developed by Gestalt psychologists to explain how smaller objects are grouped to form larger ones

Question 23

What is Gestalt psychology?

Answer 23

A school of thought that looks at the human mind and behavior as a whole. When trying to make sense of the world around us, Gestalt psychology suggests that we do not simply focus on every small component. Instead, our minds tend to perceive objects as part of a greater whole and as elements of more complex systems

Question 24

What is figure ground?

Answer 24

A type of perceptual grouping which is a vital necessity for recognizing objects through vision. In Gestalt psychology it is known as identifying a figure from the background.

Question 25

What is grouping?

Answer 25

The tendency of humans to organize stimuli into coherent groups to help maintain information

Question 26

What are binocular cues?

Answer 26

Information taken in by both eyes that enable us to have depth perception

Question 27

What are monocular cues?

Answer 27

Cues sensed by one of the two eyes to help develop depth perception, such as shape and size

Question 28

What is the Phi Phenomenon?

Answer 28

A visual illusion where lights blinking next to each other appear to be moving.

Question 29

What is perceptual adaptation?

Answer 29

The ability of the body to adapt to a new environment by filtering out distractions

Question 30

What are the types of constancies?

Answer 30

Size, shape, distance, color

Question 31

What is a perceptual set?

Answer 31

a predisposition to perceive things a certain way

Question 32

What roles do binocular and monocular cues serve in judging depth perception?

Answer 32

Monocular- Size, grain, motion parallax

Binocular-Eye convergence, disparity, and yield depth

Question 33

Explain the term perceptual adaptation. Use a real world example (NOT from the book).

Answer 33

Perceptual adaptation is your body’s ability to adapt its focus onto a new environment by filtering out distractions. An example is turning off the lights, over time you are able to see better and better in the dark because your eyes are adapting to the new level of light