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| The process by which the sense organs gather information about the environment |
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| Specialized cells in the nervous system that transform energy in the environment into neural impulses that can be interpreted by the brain |
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| In signal detection, the subject's readiness to report detecting a signal when uncertain, also called decision criterion |
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| The tendency of sensory systems to respond less to stimuli that continue without change |
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| The perceptual law described by Ernst Weber which states that for two stimuli to be perceived as differing in intensity, the secondm ust differ from the first by a constant proportion |
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| The law of psychophysics proposed by Gustav Fechner which states that the subjective magnitude of a sensation grows as a proportion of the logarithm of the stimulus |
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| A law of sensation proposed by S.S. Stevens that the subjective intensity of a stimulus grows as a proportion of the actual intensity raised to some power |
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| The tendency of sensory systems to stimuli that continue without change |
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| The distance over which a wave of energy completed a full oscillation |
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| The opening in the center of the iris that constricts or dilates to regulate the amount of light entering the eye |
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| The disk-shaped elastic structure of the eye that focuses light |
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| The changes in the shape of the lens that focus light rays |
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| The light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye that transforms light into neural impulses |
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| Neurons in the retina that combine information from many receptors and excite ganglion cells |
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| The bundle of axons of ganglion cells that carries information from the retina to the brain |
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| The central region of the retina, where light is most directly focused by the lens |
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| The point of the retina where the optic nerve leaves the eye and which contains no receptor cells |
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| The pathway running from the striate cortex through the middle and upper regions of the temporal lobes and up into the parietal lobes, involved in locationg an object in space, following its movement, and guiding movement toward it |
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| The pathway running from the striate cortex in the occipital lobes through the lower part of the temporal lobes, involved in determining what an object is |
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| A phenomenon in which individuals with cortical lesions have no conscious visual awareness but can make discriminations about objects placed in front of them |
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| The sensory quality people normally consider color |
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| Young-Hemholtz Theory of Color |
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| A theory of color vision initially proposed by Young and modified by Hermann von Helmholtz which proposes that the eye contains three types of receptors, each sensitive to wavelengths of light that produce sensations of blue, green, and red; according to this theory, the colors that humans see reflect the blends of all three colors to which the retina is sensitive; also called the trichromatic theory of color |
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| a theory of color vision that proposes the existence of three antagonistic color systems; a blue-yellow system, a red-green system, and a black-white systeml according to this theory, the blue-yellow and red-green systems are responsbile for hue, while the black-white system contributes to the perception of brightness and saturation |
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| pulsations of acoustic energy |
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| the unit of measurement of frequency of sound waves |
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| units of measure of amplitude (loudness) of a sound wave |
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| The thin, flexible membrane that marks the outer boundary of the middle ear; the eardrum is set in motion by sound waves and in turn sets in motion that ossicles; also called the tympanic membrane |
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| The three-chambered tube in the inner ear in which sound is transduced |
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| receptors for sound attached to the basilar membrane |
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| the bundle of sensory neurons that transmit auditory information from the ear to the brain |
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| a theory of pitch, which proposes that people are different areas of the basilar membrane are maximally sensitive to different frequencies |
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| the theory of pitch that asserts that perceived pitch reflects teh rate of vibration of the basilar membrane |
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| Chemicals secreted by organisms in some species that allow communication between organisms |
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| senses that provide information about body position and movement; the two proprioceptive senses are kinesthesia and vestibular sense |
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| the sense that provides information about the position of the body in space by sensing gravity and movement |
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| the sense that provides information about the movement and position of the limbs and other parts of the body; receptors in joints transuce information about the position of the bones, and receptors in the tendons and muscles transmit messages about muscular tension |
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| the process of intergrating sensations into meaninful perceptual units |
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| meaningful perceptual units, such as images of particular objects |
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| the organization of sensations into meaningful shapes and patterns |
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| a fundamental rule of perception described by Gestalt psychology which states that people inherently differentiate between figure (the object they are viewing, sound to which they are listening, etc.) and ground (background) |
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| a Gestalt rule of perception which states that the brain tends to group similar elements within a perceptual field |
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| a Gestalt rule of perception which states that, other things being equal, the brain groups objects together that are close to each other |
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| a Gestalt rule of perception which states that, if possible, the brain organizes stimuli into continuous lines or patterns rather than discontinuous elements |
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| a Gestalt rule of perception which states that people tend to perceive the simplest pattern possible |
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a Gestalt rule of perception, which states that people tend to perceive incomplete figures as complete
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| recognition-by-components |
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| the theory that asserts that we perceive and categorize objects in our environment by breaking them down into component parts and then matching the components and the way they are arranged against similar "sketches" stored in memory |
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| perceptual misinterpretations produced in the course of normal perceptual processes |
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| the organization of perception in three dimensions; also called distance perception |
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visual input from a single eye alone that contributes to depth perception
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| neurons that receive information from both eyes |
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| a monocular depth cue inolving the relative movements of retinal images of objects; nearby objects appear to speed across the field of vision, whereas distant objects barely seem to move |
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| the perception of movement in objects |
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| ganglion cells that are particularly sensitive to movement |
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| the organization of changing sensations into percepts that are relatively stable in size, shape, and color |
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| the tendency to perceive the color of objects despite changing illumination |
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the perception that an object's shape remains constant despite the changing shape of the retinal image as the object is viewed from varying perspectives
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| the perception that the shape of objects remains unchanged in spite of the fact that different impressions are made on the retina each time the object is encountered |
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| a perceptual illusion on which two lines of equal length appear different in size |
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| perceptual interpretation |
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| the process of generating meaning from sensory experience |
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| A theory which states that sensory information intrinsically carries meaning |
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| a clear table with a checkerboard directly beneath it on one side and another cherckerboard to dropp off like a cliff on the other; used especially with human infants in depth perception studies |
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| perceptual processing that starts with raw sensory data that feed "up" to the brain; what is perceived is determined largely by the features of the stimuli reaching the sense organs |
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| perceptual processing that starts with the observer's expectations and knowledge |
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| intergrated patterns of knowledge stored in memory that organize information and guide the acquisition of new information |
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