Sensation and Perception

Question 1

What is sensation?

Answer 1

How our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment

Question 2

What is perception?

Answer 2

How we organise and interpret sensory information. Enables us to recognise meaningful objects and events

Question 3

How do we construct or perceptions and sensations?

Answer 3

Using bottom up processing whilst relying on experiences and expectations to interpret stimuli through top down processing

Question 4

What is bottom-up processing?

Answer 4

Starts at sensory receptors and works up to brain’s integration of sensory information

Question 5

What is top-down processing?

Answer 5

Constructs perceptions from sensory input by drawing on experiences and expectations

Question 6

What are the core concepts of sensation?

Answer 6

• Transduction
• Thresholds
• Signal Detection
• Subliminal Stimulation
• Sensory Adaptation

Question 7

What is transduction?

Answer 7

Converting characteristics of a stimulus into nerve impulses

Question 8

What is the study of psychophysics?

Answer 8

Studies relationships between physical characteristics of stimuli and sensory capabilities

Question 9

What is the absolute threshold?

Answer 9

Minimum stimulus energy needed to detect a particular stimulus

Question 10

What is signal detection theory?

Answer 10

A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulus (noise)

Question 11

Describe subliminal stimulation

Answer 11

• Stimulus is so weak or brief that although it is received by senses, it cannot be perceived consciously (below absolute threshold)
• Can be affected by this stimuli without being aware of it (subliminal stimuli responses to later question)
• Subtle effects on attitudes and judgements

Question 12

What is difference threshold?

Answer 12

Minimum difference between two stimuli that people perceive 50% of the time

Question 13

What is Weber’s Law?

Answer 13

Principle that to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage

Question 14

What is sensory adaptation?

Answer 14

• Diminished sensitivity as a consequences of constant stimulation
• Frees up senses from mundane and detect changes important for survival
• Eyes constantly moving to ensure retinal image changes, sense receptors do not become fatigued by focusing on same image

Question 15

What is perceptual set?

Answer 15

Mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another

Question 16

What is wavelength?

Answer 16

Distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to peak of next

Question 17

What is hue?

Answer 17

Dimension of colour that is determined by the wavelength of light

Question 18

Describe intensify with vision

Answer 18

Amount of energy in a light wave or sound wave, influences what we perceive as brightness or loudness

Question 19

What are parts of the eye?

Answer 19

• Retina
• Cornea
• Iris
• Pupil
• Lens
• Blind Spot
• Optic Nerve

Question 20

What is the retina?

Answer 20

Light sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones, plus layers of neuron’s that begin the processing of visual information

Question 21

What is the cornea?

Answer 21

Bends light to help provide focus as light enters

Question 22

What is the iris?

Answer 22

Responds to cognitive and emotional states. Muscle that dilates/constricts in response to light intensity

Question 23

What is the pupil?

Answer 23

Small, adjustable opening where light passes through into eye

Question 24

What is the lens?

Answer 24

Focuses light rays onto retina, that pass through to create clear images of objects positioned at various distances

Question 25

What is the blind spot?

Answer 25

Where optic nerve and blood vessels leave eyeball, creating a "blind spot" because no receptor cells are located there

Question 26

What is the optic nerve?

Answer 26

Nerve that carries around neural impulses from eye to visual centres in brain

Question 27

What is accommodation?

Answer 27

Process which eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far object

Question 28

What are rods?

Answer 28

Retinal receptors detects black, white, gray are sensitive to movement; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond

Question 29

What are cones?

Answer 29

Retinal receptors that are concentrated near the centre of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. Cones detect fine detail and give rise to colour sensation

Question 30

Describe use adaptations of audition

Answer 30

- Keen differentiation frequently around human voice - Very sensitive to faint sounds and changes in sound that might alert us to danger - Process aspects in different areas of brain - Sound localisation: nervous system uses time to intensify differences of sounds arriving at 2 ears to locate sounds

Question 31

Describe senses of olfaction

Answer 31

- Smell via receptors that project through nasal cavity int mucous membrane - Receptors have binding site for thousands of potential odour molecules - Send input to olfactory bulb, force brain structure able nose coding for odours

Question 32

Describe sense of touch

Answer 32

- Pressure, pain and temperature - Allows us to escape external danger - Alerts us to disorders within our body - Source of pleasure - Essential to our development - Pain strongly tied to perception

Question 33

Describe sense of kinaesthesia

Answer 33

Provides us with feedback about our muscles and joint positions and movements - Nerve endings in muscles, tendons, joints - Receptors provide basis for coordinated movements

Question 34

Describe vestibular sense

Answer 34

- Sense of body orientation or equilibrium | - Receptors in vestibular apparatus in inner ear

Question 35

What is Gestalt Principles?

Answer 35

- Argue that whole is more than sum of its parts | - Emphasised our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes

Question 36

What are figure-ground relations?

Answer 36

Organisation of stimuli into a foreground figure and a background

Question 37

What is grouping?

Answer 37

Perceptual tendency to organise into coherent groups

Question 38

What is depth perception?

Answer 38

Ability to see objects in 3D although the images that strike the retina are 3D, allows us to judge distance

Question 39

Describe perceptual schemas

Answer 39

- Mental representations containing the distinctive features of a person, object, event or other perceptual phenomenon - Allows us to identify and classify sensory input