Vocab 601-650

Question 1

Decreasing responsiveness to a stimuli due to constant stimulation

Answer 1

Sensory Adaptation

Question 2

Decreasing responsiveness to a stimuli due to lack of focus

Answer 2

Sensory Habituation

Question 3

The brain’s ability to focus one’s auditory attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, as when a partygoer can focus on a single conversation in a noisy room

Answer 3

Cocktail Party Phenomenon

Question 4

What are your two energy senses?

Answer 4

Vision and Hearing

Question 5

What are your two chemical senses?

Answer 5

Taste (Gustation)
Smell (Olfaction)

Question 6

Specialized cells in the brain that have the ability to detect certain types of stimuli, like movement, shape, and angles, are called what?

Answer 6

Feature Detectors

Question 7

One of the four major lobes of the brain; contains the visual cortex

Answer 7

Occipital Lobe

Question 8

The portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye

Answer 8

Visible Light

Question 9

Part of the retina where cones are concentrated

Answer 9

Fovea

Question 10

The point of entry of the optic nerve on the retina. It is insensitive to light

Answer 10

Blind Spot

Question 11

Theory of color vision that claims humans perceive color because the eye can receive light of three different wavelengths: blue, green, and red

Answer 11

Trichromatic Theory

Question 12

Name the two kinds of color blindness

Answer 12

Dichromatic (Red-Green)
Monochromatic (Black-White)

Question 13

Theory which states that cones are linked together to form three opposing color pairs: blue/yellow, red/green, and black/white. Activation of one inhibits activity in the other

Answer 13

Opponent-Process Theory

Question 14

A visual illusion in which retinal impressions persist after the removal of the stimulus

Answer 14

Afterimage

Question 15

Which sense uses energy in the form of sound waves?

Answer 15

Hearing

Question 16

Amplitude refers to the height of a sound wave and determines the loudness of the sound which is measured in what?

Answer 16

Decibels

Question 17

High pitch sounds have high frequencies and are produced by what?

Answer 17

Waves densely packed together

Question 18

Low pitch sounds have low frequencies and are produced by what?

Answer 18

Waves spaced apart

Question 19

What part of the ear performs transduction?

Answer 19

Cochlea

Question 20

Name the two theories involved in explaining pitch

Answer 20

Place Theory
Frequency Theory

Question 21

Which pitch theory states we sense pitch because hair cells move in different places in the cochlea?

Answer 21

Place Theory

Question 22

Which pitch theory states we sense pitch because hair cells fire at different rates in the cochlea?

Answer 22

Frequency Theory

Question 23

Kind of deafness caused by unknown breakdown in the middle ear

Answer 23

Conduction Deafness

Question 24

Kind of deafness caused by damage to the cochlea

Answer 24

Sensorineural Deafness

Question 25

When our skin is indented, pierced, or experiences a change in temperature, what sense is activated?

Answer 25

Touch

Question 26

Theory which helps explain how we experience pain. Theory states some pain messages have a higher priority than others

Answer 26

Gate Control Theory

Question 27

Our sense of taste is also called what?

Answer 27

Gustation

Question 28

Our sense of smell is also called what?

Answer 28

Olfaction

Question 29

Our sense of balance is called what?

Answer 29

Vestibular Sense

Question 30

Our sense of body position

Answer 30

Kinesthetic Sense

Question 31

Stimuli below the absolute threshold

Answer 31

Subliminal Messages

Question 32

Kind of mental processing where we use information from our schemas to fill in gaps in what we sense

Answer 32

Top-Down Processing

Question 33

Bottom-up processing is also called what?

Answer 33

Feature Analysis

Question 34

Kind of psychologists who describe the principles that govern how we perceive groups of objects

Answer 34

Gestalt

Question 35

Gestalt principle: Objects or shapes that are close to one another appear as part of same group

Answer 35

Proximity

Question 36

Gestalt principle: Stimuli that physically resemble each other are regarded as part of the same group

Answer 36

Similarity

Question 37

Gestalt principle: Tendency to perceive a line continuing its established direction

Answer 37

Continuity

Question 38

Gestalt principle: We tend to perceive forms in their complete appearance despite the absence of one or more of their parts

Answer 38

Closure

Question 39

Tendency to see familiar objects as having a standard shape, size, or color regardless of changes on our retina

Answer 39

Perceptual Constancy

Question 40

Although objects closer to our eyes produce bigger images on our retinas, we still see their size as constant

Answer 40

Size Constancy

Question 41

Although an object may be viewed from different angles, we still see their shape as constant

Answer 41

Shape Constancy

Question 42

Although changes in light may change the color of an object, we still perceive a constant color in our mind

Answer 42

Brightness Constancy

Question 43

What are the two kinds of depth cues?

Answer 43

Monocular Cues Binocular Cues

Question 44

Name one kind of Monocular Depth Cue

Answer 44

Relative Size Interposition Texture Gradient

Question 45

Name one kind of Binocular Depth Cue

Answer 45

Binocular (Retinal) Disparity Convergence

Question 46

Along with Torsten Wiesel, won the 1981 Nobel Prize for discovering feature detectors in the visual cortex

Answer 46

David Hubel

Question 47

Along with David Hubel, won the 1981 Nobel Prize for discovering feature detectors in the visual cortex

Answer 47

Torsten Wiesel

Question 48

Psychophysicist who computed the exact ratio needed for the Just Noticeable Difference in various senses

Answer 48

Ernst Weber

Question 49

Psychophysicist whose research contributed to Weber's Law

Answer 49

Gustav Fechner

Question 50

Created the visual cliff experiment to study depth perception in infants

Answer 50

Eleanor Gibson