Notes

Study Guide: Sense and Perception

1. What’s the difference between sensation and perception?
2. What is top-down processing? Give an example.
3. What is bottom-down processing?
Example: Trying to see a hidden representational image in a piece of abstract art by looking carefully at each element in the picture and trying to form an image.
4. Give an example of selective attention. (Sensory adaptation is a form of selective attention.)
5. Explain sensory adaptation.
Example of sensory adaptation:
After listening to your high-volume car stereo for 15 minutes, you fail to realize how loudly the music is blasting.
6. The cocktail party phenomenon =
Absolute threshold level (Ex. Barely seeing/tasting/hearing something…can detect it 50% of the time.)
7.Signal-Detection Theory =
Can expectation & emotion affect your “absolute threshold level”?
Example: An exhausted forest ranger may notice the faintest scent of a forest fire, whereas much stronger but less important odors fail to catch her attention.
Inattentional blindness= we fail to perceive certain things because we are so distracted with other things.
Example: In one experiment, most of the participants who viewed a videotape of men tossing a basketball remained unaware of an umbrella-toting woman sauntering across the screen.
8. Weber’s Law says that JND is __________________
Example:
Giulio's bag of marbles is twice as heavy as Jim's. If it takes 5 extra marbles to make Jim's bag feel heavier, it will take 10 extra marbles to make Giulio's bag feel heavier.
9. Transduction = The process by which our sensory systems convert stimulus energies into neural messages.
10. Perceptual Set
11. Describe the following Gestalt principles: proximity, similarity, closure, continuity
THE VISUAL SYSTEM
12. What happens to the pupils of the eye in bright sunlight? Dark room?
13. Blind spot = The area of the retina where the optic nerve leaves the eye.
14. Trace the pathway of light into the eye.
15. Iris = The adjustable opening in the center of the eye
16. Retina = The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the rods and cones.
17. The rods in your retina is more light sensitive than the cones. However, cones are color sensitive than rods.
18. Name the primary color cones according to the trichromatic theory.
19. Name the pairs of color cones (according to the Opponent-Process theory)
20. If you stare at the color green, you would see the color ______as an after image.
21. Feature detectors = are nerve cells in the brain's visual cortex that fire in response to specific edges, lines, and angles. (Example: There are feature detectors in your brain that help you to recognize (or detect) facial features when looking at people.
22. Binocular Depth Cues
a. Retinal Disparity
b. Convergence
23. Monocular Depth Cues
a. Linear Perspective
b. Relative Size
c. Texture Gradient
d. Interposition
24. Which theory best explains color blindness? Visual after images?
AUDITORY SYSTEM
25. In sound waves, what does wavelength determine? Amplitude?
26. In light waves, what does wavelength determine? Amplitude?
27. With regards to sound, timbre refers to a sound wave’s ____________.
28. Trace the pathway of sound in the ear. Know the function of the various parts of the ear.
29. Auditory localization is to sound as ______________ is to vision.
30. The mechanical vibrations triggered by sound waves are transduced into neural impulses by hair cells in the cochlea.
31. The place theory says that high-frequency sounds trigger large vibrations near the beginning of the basilar membrane.
32. Conduction hearing loss = Damage to the hammer, anvil, and stirrup
33. Sensorineural hearing loss = (Nerve deafness) This is difficult to treat and would would require a cochlear implant.
34. Parallel processing =
35. (Example: The ability to simultaneously process the pitch, loudness, melody, and meaning of a song best illustrates parallel processing.)
36. With our sense of sight, the retina is where light is converted to electrical signals. With our sense of hearing, this structure is where sound is converted to electrical signals.
Other..
37. Our sense of smell can often trigger powerful memories because ______.
38. Olfaction =
39. Sense of taste = bitter, sweet, sour, and salty
40. Gate control theory = our sense of pain can be reduced by “distraction”.
41. Vestibular sense
42. Kinesthetic sense
43. Research show no scientific evidence for ESP.