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| Process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimuli from the environment |
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| Process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events |
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| Analysis that begins with sensory receptors and ends with the brain integrating the information |
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| Higher level information processing; such as when we construct perceptions from our experiences and expectations |
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| Study of relationships between physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them |
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| Minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time |
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| Prediction of how and when we detect the presence of faint stimulus (signal) against a background stimulation (noise); assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness |
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| Below the absolute threshold for conscious awareness |
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| The unconscious activation of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response |
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| Minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time; experienced as a just noticeable difference (jnd) |
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| Principle that to be perceived as different two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum proportion (not by a constant amount) |
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| Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation |
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| Conversion of one form of energy to another; transforming stimulus energies (sight, sound, smell)into neural impulses our brains can interpret |
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| Distance from the peak of one wave to the peak of the next |
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| Color; determined by wavelength of light |
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| Amount of energy in a wave; perceived as brightness or loudness as determined by amplitude |
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| Adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters |
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| Ring of muscle that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil |
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| Transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina |
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| Light-sensitive inner surface of the ye that contains receptor rods, cones, and neuron layers that begin visual processing |
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| Process by which the eye's lens change shape to focus on objects that nearby or far away |
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| Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision |
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| Retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and function in daylight; detect fine detail and color |
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| Nerve that carries impulses from the eye to the brain |
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| Point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because there are no receptor cells there |
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| Central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster |
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| Nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement |
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| Unconscious processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously, such as in vision |
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| Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory |
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| Upholds that the retina contains three different color receptors (blue, red, green) which can combine to produce the perception of any color |
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| Number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given amount of time |
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| A tone's highness or lowness; depends on frequency |
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| Coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses |
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| Innermost part of the ear which contains the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs |
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| Links pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated; explains how we hear high-pitches, but not low-pitches |
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| Rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, enabling us to sense pitch; assumes the volley principle (neural cells can alternate firing to achieve a combined frequency) |
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| Hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea |
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| Sensorineural Hearing Loss |
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| Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves (nerve deafness) |
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| Device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea |
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| System for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts |
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| Sense of body position and movement, including balance |
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| Spinal cord contains a neurological gate that blocks or admits pain signals to the brain; the gate is opened by pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and closed by activity in large fibers or suppressing information coming from the brain |
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| Principle that one sense may influence another |
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| Organized whole; tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes |
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| Organization of visual field into objects (figures) that stand out from their surroundings (ground) |
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| Perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups |
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| Ability to see objects in three dimensions; allows us to judge distance |
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| Laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals |
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| Depth cues, such as retinal disparity, that depend on the use of two eyes |
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| Binocular cue for perceiving depth: compares images from the retinas of both eyes; the greater the disparity between the two images, the closer the object |
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| Depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, that are available to either eye alone |
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| Illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession |
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| Perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change |
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| Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object |
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| In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or inverted visual field |
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| Mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another |
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| Branch of psychology that explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be made safe and easy to use |
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| Extrasensory Perception (ESP) |
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| Controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition |
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| Study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis |
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