module 20,21, 24 final exam

Question 1

perceptual set?

Answer 1

through expirence we come to expect certain results, those expectations may give us perceptual set; a mental predispostion to percieve one thing and not another. ( ex a piolit looks at his sad copilot and says “cheer up” since the copilot is used to operating the plane, he hears “gear up” instead

Question 2

extrasensory perception (ESP)

Answer 2

the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precogniton

Question 3

telepathy?

Answer 3

mind to mind communication (communicating with someone without using words, through the mind instead)

Question 4

Clairvoyance?

Answer 4

perceiving remote events, such as a house on fire in another state, without actually being there

Question 5

Precogniton?

Answer 5

perceiving future events, such as an unexpected death in the next month

Question 6

psychokinesis?

Answer 6

making an obeject levitate, or influencing the role of a dice

Question 7

parapsychology?

Answer 7

the study of paranormal phenomena, including esp and psychokinesis

Question 8

audition?

Answer 8

the sense or act of hearing

Question 9

frequency?

Answer 9

the length of a sound wavelength, helps determine the pitch; the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time

Question 10

short wavelength?

Answer 10

high frequency (high pitched noises)

Question 11

long wavelength?

Answer 11

low frequency (low pitched sounds)

Question 12

great amplitude (big height)

Answer 12

loud sounds

Question 13

small amplitude (short height)

Answer 13

soft sounds

Question 14

pitch?

Answer 14

a tones experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency

Question 15

middle ear?

Answer 15

the chamber between the eardrums and cochela containing 3 tiny bones (hammer, anvil, stirrup) that concentrates the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochelas oval window

Question 16

cochlea?

Answer 16

a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear; sound waves travel through the cochlea fluid trigger nerve impulses, hair cells line the cochlea, vibrating hair cells produce an electrical signal

Question 17

inner ear?

Answer 17

the innermost part of the ear, contians cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs

Question 18

auditory nerve?

Answer 18

carries the neural messages to your thalamas and then onto the auditory cortex

Question 19

sensorineural hearing loss?

Answer 19

nerve deafness; hearing loss caused by damage to the cochleas receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; the most common form of hearing loss

Question 20

conductioin hearing loss?

Answer 20

less common; caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to cochlea

Question 21

cochlear implant?

Answer 21

a bionic ear basically, a device for converting sounds into eletrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electordes threaded into cochlea

Question 22

Place theory:

Answer 22

we hear different pitches because different sound waves trigger activity at different places along the cochleas basilar membrane; the brain determines a a sounds pitch by recognizing a specific place (on the membrane) that is generating the neural signal. explains how we hear high pitched sounds, not low pitched sounds

Question 23

frequency theory:

Answer 23

the brain reads pitch monitoring the frequency of nerual impulses traveling up the auditory nerve; the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, enabling us to sense its pitch. works best with low pitched sounds. (ex. a sound wave has a frequency of 100 waves per second, then 100 pulses per second travel up the auditory nerve)

Question 24

when you listen to music, the sound waves cause your ______ to vibrate first?

Answer 24

eardrum

Question 25

sensation?

Answer 25

the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system recieve and represent stimulus energies from our envioronment

Question 26

sensory receptors?

Answer 26

sensory nerve endings that respond to stimuli, detects information and sends it to brain

Question 27

perception?

Answer 27

the process by which the brain organizes and interprets sensory input, enabling us to recognize meaningful events or objects

Question 28

bottom-up processing?

Answer 28

starts at your sensory receptors and works up to higher levels of processing (ex. enables your sensory systems to dectect the lines, angles, and colors that form the flower)

Question 29

top-down processing?

Answer 29

contructs perceptions from this sensory imput by drawing on your experince and expectations; imformation processing guided by a higher level mental process. (being able to see that these lines, angles, and color form a rose)

Question 30

selective attention?

Answer 30

our conciousness focuses on one thing at a time (the ability to hear one paritcular voice among a sea of other voices, like being able to hear just your friend at a party)

Question 31

inattentional blindness? Change blindness

Answer 31

(1) failing to see visible objects when your attention is directed somewhere else (counting how many times the people pass the ball, but failing to see someone with an umbrella walk by in the background) (2) failing to notice changes in the environment, form of inattentional blindness, (ex. veiwers failed to notice that, after a brief visual interuption, the coke bottle that had been in the room disappeared)

Question 32

transduction?

Answer 32

converting one form of energy into another that our brain can use; transforming stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds and smell, into nerual impulses our brain can understand

Question 33

psychophysics

Answer 33

studies the relationships between the physical energy we can detect and its effects on our psychological experinces

Question 34

absolute threshold?

Answer 34

the minimum stimulus needed to detect a particular light, sound, odor, or pressure, 50% of the time

Question 35

signal detection theory?

Answer 35

predicts when we will detect weak signals; assume there is no single absolute threshold and the detection depends partly on a specific persons expirence, expectations, motivation, and alertness (ex. why the same persons reactions vary as circustances change, when a creaking sound triggers fear for someone home alone after watching a scary movie)

Question 36

subliminul?

Answer 36

stimuli that you cannot conciously detect 50% of the time are subliminul, below your absolute threshold

Question 37

difference threshold?

Answer 37

a minimum stimulus difference a person can detect half of the time; if we listen to music at 40 decibles, we probably wont be able to hear if 10 more decibles are added, but if we add 60 more decibles, we will be able to hear the difference in sound

Question 38

webers law?

Answer 38

for an average person to be able to perceive a difference, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimul percentage (not a constant amount), the percentage varies depending on the stimulus

Question 39

sensory adaptation?

Answer 39

when constantly exposed to an unchanging stimulus, we become less aware of it because our nerve cells fire less frequently; diminished senstivity as of consequence of constant stimulation (ex. smelling really strong perfume from someone but not being able to smell it anymore after sitting by them for a long period of time

Question 40

gate control theory?

Answer 40

the spinal cord contains a neurological gate that controls the transmission of pain messages to the brain. allows or denys pain signals to pass onto the brain

Question 41

Kinesthesia?

Answer 41

our movement sense, keeps you aware of your body parts’ position and movement.

Question 42

vestibular sense?

Answer 42

monitors your heads (and thus your bodys) position and movement that enables our sense of balance by sending nerve signals to cerebellum

Question 43

sensory interaction?

Answer 43

the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste. Our brains blend our senses to interpret the world

Question 44

embodied cognition?

Answer 44

the influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments (ex. physical warmth may promote social warmth, holding a warm drink while meeting someone may make you rate the person more warmly, and feel closer to them