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Psychology 120 > Chapter 6 - Class Powerpoint > Flashcards

Chapter 6 - Class Powerpoint Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the definition of sensation?

A

The detection of physical energy emitted or reflected by physical objects. It occurs when energy in the external environment or the body simulates receptors in the sense organs.

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2
Q

What is the definition of perception?

A

The process by which the brain organizes and interprets sensory information.

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3
Q

What are sense receptors?

A

Specialized cells that convert physical energy in the environment or physical energy in our bodies into electrical energy that is transmitted as nerve impulses to the brain.
Specialized cells that are separated by the sensory neuron by synapses receive information about vision, hearing, and taste.

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4
Q

What role do dendrites play in sensory sensations?

A

Dendrites receive information about smell, temperature, and pain.

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5
Q

What is the Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies?

A

Accredited to Müller, it’s the principle that different sensory modalities exist because signals received by the sense organs stimulate different nerve pathways leading to different areas of the brain, possibly allowing for sensory substitution.

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6
Q

What is Synthesia?

A

Sensory crossover where the stimulation of one sense consistently evokes a sensation in another. A crossover between sensory and perception; perception is registered using more than one sense.

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7
Q

What noteworthy work was done with sensory substitution?

A

Psychologist Ptito did work primarily with the blind, teaching blind people to interpret impulses from other sense to be routed to sections of the brain involved with vision.

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8
Q

What is the Absolute Threshold?

A

When measuring senses, the smallest quantity of physical energy that can be reliably detected by an observer (50% of the time). Senses are sharp, but only tuned into a narrow band of physical energies.

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9
Q

What is the Difference Threshold?

A

The smallest difference in stimulation that can reliably be detected by an observer when two stimuli are compared. Also called the Just Noticeable Difference (JND).

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10
Q

What is the Just Noticeable Difference?

A

The smallest difference in stimulation that can reliably be detected by an observer when two stimuli are compared.

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11
Q

What is Signal Detection Theory?

A

A psychological theory that divides the detection of a sensory signal into a sensory process (depends on the intensity of the stimulus) and a decision process (influenced by the observer’s response bias).

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12
Q

What are the four kinds of responses possible in the Signal Detection Theory?

A
  1. “Hit”
  2. “False Alarm”
  3. “Miss”
  4. “Correct Rejection”
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13
Q

What is a False Alarm?

A

Signal Detection Theory, when the subject falsely attributes a signal when there was no signal.

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14
Q

What is a Hit?

A

Signal Detection Theory, when the subject correctly says a change has occurred.

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15
Q

What is a Miss?

A

Signal Detection Theory, when the subject fails to correctly say a change has occurred.

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16
Q

What is a Correct Rejection?

A

Signal Detection Theory, when the subject correctly says that no change occurred.

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17
Q

What is Sensory Adaption?

A

The reduction or disappearance of sensory responsiveness when stimulation is unchanged or repetitious, preventing humans from having to continuously respond to unimportant information.

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18
Q

What is Sensory Deprivation?

A

The absence of normal levels of sensory stimulation (example: Romania Orphanage).

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19
Q

What is Sensory Overload?

A

Overstimulation of the senses. Selective attention can be used to reduce sensory overload.

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20
Q

What is Selective Attention?

A

The focusing of attention on selected aspects of the environment and the blocking out of others.

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21
Q

What is the Cocktail Party Phenomenon?

A

A colloquial term for Selective Attention, because of the ability to focus on one person in a loud party. Attributed to Colin Cherry.

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22
Q

What is Inattentional Blindness?

A

Failure to consciously perceive something you are looking at because you are not attending to it.

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23
Q

What is Hue?

A

The visual experience specified by colour names and related to the wavelength of light.

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24
Q

What kind of light does the sun produce?

A

A white light.

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25
What colours do shorter and longer wavelengths tend to be associated with, respectively?
Shorter tends to be violet and blue, while longer ones are red and orange.
26
What is Brightness?
The dimension of visual experience related to the amount, or intensity, of the light an object emits or reflects. Lightness or luminance.
27
Generally speaking, how does brightness work?
Generally, the more light an objects reflects, the brighter it appears. However, yellow appears brighter than reds and blues with equal intensity.
28
What is Saturation?
The vividness or purity of colour, the visual experience related to the complexity of light waves. Changes with how much white or how much black is added.
29
When is light said to be "pure"?
When light contains only a signal wavelength, said to be completely saturated. White is the opposite of this.
30
What is the Cornea?
The part of the eye that protects the eye and bends light toward the lens.
31
What is the Lens?
The part of the eye that focuses on objects by changing shape.
32
What is the Iris?
The part of the eye that controls the amount of light that gets into the eye.
33
What is the Pupil?
The part of the eye that widens or dilates to let in more/less light.
34
What is the Retina?
Neural tissue lining the back of the eyeball's interior, which contains the receptors (rods and cones) for vision. Initiates visual sensation and perception.
35
What are the parts of the Retina?
Rods and cones, bipolar cells, ganglion cells, fovea, and blind spot.
36
What are Rods?
Photoreceptor cells in the retina that begin the process of vision. Triggered by protons, they allow us to see colour and adapt to darkness. Each eye has 120-125 million rods, and are the reason why we can see in dim lighting. They take less protons to trigger than cones.
37
What are Cones?
Photoreceptor cells in the retina the begin the process of vision. They are triggered by protons, and allow us to see colour. Each eye has 7-8 million cones, and need more protons to trigger than rods do.
38
What are ganglion cells?
Neurons of the retina that gather information from receptor cells (by bipolar cells) to help with the formation of images, the axons of the ganglion cells come together at the back of the eye to form optic nerve fibres. The visual signal leaves the eye and continues through various brain structures to the visual cortex in the occipital lobe. Where the optic nerve leaves the eye, there are no rods or cones.
39
What is the Fovea?
A highly sensitive region of the retina that is responsible for precise focus vision.
40
What is the Blind Spot?
An area of the retina with no rods and no cones, it is where the optic nerve leaves the eye.
41
What is Dark Adaptation?
A process by which visual receptors become maximally sensitive to dim light.
42
What is the Trichromatic Theory?
(Young-Helmholz Theory) Applies to the first level of colour processing, which occurs in the retina of the eye. The retina contains three types of cones (red, blue, and green wavelength sensitive). Interaction of activity in three cones assumed to produce all the different experiences of hue.
43
What is total colour blindness usually due to?
A generic variation that causes the cones of the retina to be absent or nonfunctional.
44
What does "colour deficient" mean?
Colour blindness as it usually applies to humans, meaning that the person is unable to distinguish red and green (everything is seen as blue, yellow, brown, and grey). Occurs in 8% of white males, 5% of Asian men, and 3% of indigenous/black men. Rare in women.
45
What is the Opponent-Process Theory?
A theory that is applicable to the second stage of colour processing, which occurs in the ganglion cells in the retina and in the neurons in the thalamus and visual cortex of the brain. Opponent-Process Cells either respond to short wavelengths but are inhibited from firing by long wavelengths, or vice-versa. Assumes that the visual system treats pairs of colours as opposing or antagonistic. Cells that are inhibited by one colour, produce burst of firing when opponent colour is presented. Responsible for negative after-image.
46
What are the three opponent pairs in the Opponent-Process Theory?
Red/green, blue/yellow, and black/white.
47
What is Visual Perception?
The process by which an organism selects and interprets visual input so it acquires meaning by using sensory input, past events, and current stimulation.
48
According to the Gestalt psychologists, what do people separate the visual field into?
The figure and the ground.
49
What is the figure?
Something that stands out from the rest of the environment,
50
What are the Gestalt Principles?
Principles that describe the brain's organization of sensory information into meaningful units and patterns.
51
What is the Figure-Ground relationship?
How we determine what we see as the object and what we see as the background.
52
What is the Gestalt Principle of Proximity?
Things close to one another are grouped together (Law of Pränanz).
53
What is the Law of Pränanz?
Stimuli that can be grouped together as a whole will be perceived/interpreted that way (proximity).
54
What is the Gestalt Principle of Closure?
The brain tends to fill in gaps to perceive complete forms.
55
What is the Gestalt Principle of Similarity?
Things that are alike are perceived together.
56
What is the Gestalt Principle of | Continuity?
Seeing lines that connect 1 to 2; a string of items will indicate where the next one will be.
57
What is the Gestalt Principle of Common Fate?
Items that move or change together will be perceived as a whole. (a flock vs 7 geese)
58
What is Depth Perception?
What allows a person to estimate the distance from an object and the distance between objects.
59
What does Depth Perception rely on?
Binocular cues and monocular cues.
60
What are Binocular Cues?
Visual cues to depth perception or distance that require the use of both eyes.
61
What is Convergence?
A type of binocular cue that involves the turning inward of the eyes, which occurs when they focus on a nearby object.
62
What is Retinal Disparity?
A type of binocular cue that involves the slight difference in lateral separation between two objects as seen by the left eye and the right eye. Increases as the distance increases.
63
What are Monocular Cues?
Visual cues to depth or distance that can be used by one eye alone.
64
What are some types of Monocular cues? (7)
Motion parallax, kinetic depth effect, linear perspective, interposition, texture, highlighting and shadowing, atmospheric perspective.
65
In regards to Monocular Cues, what is Light and Shadow?
Attributes that give objects the appearance of three dimensions.
66
In regards to Monocular Cues, what is Interposition?
When an object partly blocks or obscures another object, meaning that the first object must be in front of the other one and as such is seen as closer.
67
In regards to Monocular Cues, what is Motion Parallax?
When an observer is moving, objects appear to move at different speeds and in different directions. The closer an object, the faster it seems to move. Close objects appear to move backwards, whereas distant ones seem to move forward.
68
In regards to Monocular Cues, what is Relative Size?
The smaller an object's image on the retina, the farther away the object appears.
69
In regards to Monocular Cues, what is Relative Clarity?
Because of the particles in air - from dust, fog, or smog - distant objects tend to look hazier, duller, or less detailed.
70
In regards to Monocular Cues, what is Texture Gradients?
Distant parts of a uniform surface appear denser; that is, its elements seem spaced more closely together.
71
In regards to Monocular Cues, what is Linear Perspective?
Parallel lines will appear to be converging in the distance; the greater the apparent convergence, the greater the perceived distance.
72
What is Accommodation in regards to Monocular Cues?
How the shape of the lens of the eye changes as distance to an object changes.
73
What is Perceptual Constancy?
The accurate perception of objects as stable or unchanged despite changes in the sensory patterns they produce.
74
What is Size Constancy?
The ability of the visual perceptual system to recognize that an object remains constant in size despite distance from the observer. This is determined by previous experience with the true size of the object, distance between the object and the person, and the presence of surrounding objects.
75
What is Shape Constancy?
The ability of the visual system to recognize a shape despite changes in its orientation to the angle from which it is viewed.
76
What is Location Constancy?
Retinal image is moving, but the brain knows that the image is not actually moving but that the body is moving forward.
77
What is Brightness Constancy?
A sheet of white paper seen in the bright sunlight reflects a very different amount of light than the same sheet of paper later that night in a softly lighted room. Yet the paper is perceived as having the same whiteness in each case.
78
What is Colour Constancy?
The way you perceive a colour depends on the surrounding colour. We see an object as maintaining its hue despite the fact that the wavelength of light reaching our eyes may change as the illumination changes.
79
What is an Illusion?
When the perception of a physical stimulus differs from measurable reality; they occur when our perceptual cues are being overrode.
80
What is the Müller-Lyer Illusion?
The vertical lines being perceived as different lengths, despite the fact they are the same.
81
What is the Ponzo Illusion?
The idea that linear perspective provides context, and that side lines seem to converge so therefore the top line should be farther away (but the retinal images of the red lines are equal).
82
What is the gate-control theory of pain?
The theory that the experience of pain depends in part on whether pain impulses can get past a neurological "gate" in the spinal cord and reach the brain. "Gates" are closed by incoming impulses from large fibres or from the brain; opened by impulses from smaller fibres. If "gate" is open, then pain impulses reach the brain.
83
Who proposed the gate-control theory of pain?
Ronald Melzack.
84
What is phantom pain?
The experience of pain in a missing limb or other body part.
85
What is kinesthesis?
The sense of body position and movement of body parts.
86
What is the Neuromatrix Theory of Pain?
Matrix of neurons in the brain is capable of generating pain (and other sensations) in the absence of signals from sensory nerves - accounts for phantom pain.
87
Who is Dr. Moskowitz?
A doctor who worked with the idea of neuroplasticity to train patients to live without chronic pain.
88
What are perceptual powers dependent on?
Innate characteristics and experience (Kitten experiment).
89
What is Subliminal Perception?
Perceiving without awareness, visual stimuli can affect behaviour even when you are unaware you saw it (priming). Nonconscious processes influence perception, memory, thinking, decision-making. Subliminal persuasion attempts often don't consider a person's motivation (placebo effects).
90
What is Extrasensory Perception?
ESP, claims that some people can send and receive messages about the world without relying on the usual sensory channels (limited empirical support).
91
What is Parapsychology?
The study of purported psychic phenomena such as ESP and mental telepathy.

Psychology 120 (23 decks)

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