Sensation:

Perception:

The sorting out, interpretation, analysis, and integration of stimuli by the sense organs and the brain.

Stimulus:

Energy that produces a response in a sense organ.

N/A

Absolute Threshold

The smallest intensity of a stimulus that must be present for the stimulus to be detected.

Psychophysics

The study of the relationship between the physical aspects of stimuli and our psychological experience of them.

Difference  Threshold (just noticeable difference)

The smallest level of added or reduced stimulation required to sense that a change in stimulation has occurred.

Weber's Law #1

A basic law of psychophysics stating that a just noticeable difference is a constant prportion to the intensity of an initial stimulus (rather that a constant amount).

Weber's Law #2

Remember that Weber's law holds for every type of sensory stimuli: vision, sound, taste, etc.

Weber's law helps explain why a person in a quiet room is more startled by the ringing of a telephone than is a person in an already noisy room.

N/A

Adaptation:

An adjustment in sensory capacity after prolonged exposure to unchanging stimuli.

Vision starts wiith light, the physical energy that stimulates the eye. It is a form of electromagnetic waves. Humans are sensitive to a relatively small spectrum, which is called visual spectrum.

Retina:

Part of the eye that converts the electromagnetic energy of light to electrical impulses.

There are two kind of light-sensitive receptor cells in the retina. Hint: named after their shapes.

Rods are thin, cylindrical and highly sensitive to light.

Cones are responsible for sharp focus and color reception.

Cones are concentrated on the part of the retina called the:

Fovea

Light strikes, and triggers a neural response that moves out the back of the eyeball and into the brain. First, goighg through ganglion axons called:

Optic Nerve

The optic nerves meet between both eyes, this is called:

Optic Chiasm 

The nerves "split"

 Feature Detection:

The activation of neurons in the cortex by visual stimuli of specific shapes or patterns.

Trichromatic theory of color vision:

The theory that there are three kinds of cones in the retina, each of which responds primarily to a specific range of wavelengths.

blue-violet, green, yellow-red

Opponent-process theory of color vision:

The theory that receptor cells for color are linked in pairs, working in opposition to each other.

 Space Sickness:

The constant nausea and vomiting by where an astronaut loses his/her "cookies".

What astronauts have in space:

A problem with basic sensory process: sense of motion and balance.

Sound Localization:

Identifying the direction from which a sound is coming from. Wave patterns (in the ear) enter each ear at a slightly different time. Outer ears delay or amplify sounds of particular frequencies to different degrees.

Sound:

The movement of air molecules brought by a source of vibration.

Auditory Canal:

A tubelike passage that leads to the eardrum.

Eardrum:

Named because it operates like a drum, vibrating when a sound wave hits it.

Inner Ear:

Part of the ear which changes sound vibrations into a form and then transmitted to the brain.

Cochlea:

When sound enters the inner ear, it moves through a coiled tube, which is filled with fluid that vibrates in response to sound. 

Basilar Membrane:

Inside the chohlea is a structure that runs through the center, dividing into an upper chamber and a lower chamber.

Olfactory Cells:

The receptor neurons of the nose. The responses of the seperate olfactory cells are then transmitted to the brain, where they are combined into recognition of a particular smell.

Gustation:

The sense of taste involves receptor cells that responsed to four basic stimulus qualities: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

Skin Sense:

 Includes touch, pressure, and pain. The most researched  for is pain.

Managing Pian:

 1) Nerve and brain stimulation - the use of low-voltage electric current.

2) Light therapy - involves exposure to specific wavelengths of red.

3) Biofeedback and relaxation techniques

4) Surgery

5) Cognitive restructuring

Gestalt laws of organization:

Series of principles that describe how we organize bits and pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Gestalt (4)laws of organization:

1) Closure

2) Proximity

3) Similarity

4) Simplicity

Top-down processing:

Perception guided by higher level knowledge, experience, expectations, and motivations.

Bottom-up processing:

Consists of the progression of recognizing and processing information from individual components of a stimulus and moving to the perception of the whole.

Visual Illusions:

Physical stimuli that consistantly produce errors in perception.

Consciousness:

The awareness of the sensations, thoughts, and feelings being experienced at a given moment.

What are the 5 stages of sleep?

Stage 1 sleep:  the state of transition between wakefulness and sleep, characterized relatively rapid, low-amplitued brain waves.

Stage 2 sleep: A sleep deeper than that of stage 1, characterized by a slower, more regular wave pattern, along with momentary interruptions of "sleep spindles."

Stage 3 sleep: A sleep charaterized by slow brain waves, with greater  peaks and valleys in the wave pattern than in stage 2 sleep.

Stage 4 sleep: The deepest stage of sleep, during which we are least responsive to outside stimulation.     #5 ---->

Stage 5 sleep:

R.E.M. (please don't hum  any songs)                                                        

Rapid -Eye-Movement Sleep

Sleep occupying 20 percent of an adult's sleeping time.

All stages previously mentioned are non-REM.