Module 4 Flashcards
Exteroreceptive sensations
Any form of sensation that results from stimuli located outside the body detected by sensory organs
-vision, hearing, touch, pressure, heat, cold, pain, smell, taste
Interoceptive sensations
Sensations from inside our body
-dancers for example have increased interoceptive accuracy
Proprioception
Sense of where our limbs are in space
Nocioception
Sense of pain due to body damage
Equilibrioception
Sense of balance
Synaesthesia
A neurological condition in which one sense automatically triggers the experience of another sense.
Ex. Grapheme-color synesthesia: a person sees colors with certain letters or numbers.
-One hypotheses is that it is due to cross wiring between processing areas in the brain
-artists are 8x more likely to have synesthesia than non-artists. Increases creativity
McGurk effect
A voice articulating a consonant (ba) paired with a face articulating another one (fa) leads you to hear what you see
-illustrates dominance of visual input
-sounds doesnt change, its an illusion. What we’re seeing influences what we’re hearing
What takes part in the early visual processing (sensation)?
Eyes and optic nerve
Steps of early visual processing
1- light waves enter eye and are projected onto the retina
2- photoreceptors in the retina (rods & cones) convert light to electrical activity
3- the electrical signal is sent to bipolar cells and then to the ganglion cells
4- signal exits through the optic nerve to the brain
Information compression
Because less ganglion cells than photoreceptors, you dont see everything that is out there in the world
Rods vs cones
Rods: low light levels for night vision (very sensitive). Rods are mostly outside of the fovea, in the periphery. Thats why periphery of your visual field is less detailed and less accurate
Cones: high light levels for detailed color vision (not that sensitive). Cones are most concentrated in the fovea (central part of visual field). Thats why center of your visual field is most detailed
Blindspot
No photoreceptors so visual stimuli are not received
Why we’re not aware of blindspot
Because of perceptual filling-in. Later visual processes in the brain provide the missing informatiion.
+ left and right visual fields can compensate for each other’s blindspot
Steps of late visual processing
1- thalamus
2-primary visual cortex (V1): edges, angles, color, light
And then the more high up we go in the visual stream, we find neurons that respond to features as specific as face, objects, or places.
3- visual association areas: interpretation
What (ventral) pathway
From occipital lobe to temproal lobe
Where (dorsal) pathway
Occipital to parietal lobe
True or false: blindsight leads to deficits in imagining something but not in consciously processing incoming visual info
False. Blindsight leads to deficits in consciously processing incoming visual info but not imagery
Akinetopsia
Visual motion blindness. Cannot see motion. Series of stationary objects
Damage to the dorsal pathway
Optic ataxia. Inability to reach for objects.
Damage to ventral pathway
Visual agnosia. Difficulties recognizing everyday objects
Prosopagnosia
Fusiform face area damage leads to a selective deficit in recognizing faces. Can see other objects
Proof that selective face processing in the brain: sheep farmer with prosopagnosia. Couldnt recognize faces but was able to recognize and discriminate sheep with very high accuracy (90%)
Apperceptive visual agnosia
Failure to recognize objects due to problems with perceiving the elements of the objects as a whole.
-they can detect different features but cant group them together as a whole = cant create a single perception in the brain
-memory is fine: can draw from memory. But cant copy!
Associative visual agnosia
Inability to associate visual input with meaning.
-deficit is in being able to access information about the object
-can copy but cant draw object from memory.
-cant name or identify objects
Constructivist theory of perception
-Top-down
-perception is influenced by stored knowledge and context