Empiricism

as school of thought  that holds that all knowledge comes by way of empirical experience, that is, through the senses.

the tissue-thin structure at the back of the interior of the eye that contains the photoreceptors, several layers of intermediate neurons, & the cell bodies of the axons that form the optic nerve

an object or even outside as contrasted to the proximal stimulus, which is the pattern of physical energies that originates from the distal stimulus & impinges ona sense organ

the stimulus information that actually reaches the sensory receptors

according to the empiricists, the primitive experiences that emanate from the senses

a linkage between two physiological processes or representations as a result of past experiences in which the two have occured together

"depth cues" sources of information that signal the distance from the observer to the distal stimulus. Some "depth cues" are present in a signal retinal image, some require a comparison of the information received from the two eyes, some involves the pattern of motion in the retinal eyes, some involves the pattern of motion in the retinal image & some arise from the positions of the eyes in viewing.

Nativism

the view that some important aspects of perception & of other cognitive processes are innate

the process by which a receptor reacts to some physical stimulus & creates action potentials in another neuron

an approach to understanding perception that relates the characteristics of physical stimuli to attributes of the sensory experience they produce

the act of detecting something; catching sight of something

a process of learning to respond to certain stimuli that are reinforced & not to others that are  unreinforced

a task in which a participant must judge whether he has encountered a stimulus previously

a procedure for assigning numbers to a subject's responses

the amount by which a given stimulus must be increased or decreased so that the research participant can perceive a just noticeable difference