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Unit 3 Psych Vocab
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Sensation | process of detection, converting, and transmitting raw sensory info from the external and internal environments to the brain |
| Perception | process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensory info |
| bottom -up processing | processing info starting with your senses and working up to higher order thinking (given something you don't like, build an opinion, but don't know what it is until after) |
| Top-down processing | constructs perceptions based on your experiences and expectations (making assumptions based on biases) |
| Selective attention | the focus of our conscious mind on one stimuli (focus on things you deem important) |
| Change blindness | the failure to notice changes in the environment (can also apply to hearing) |
| Transduction | transforming stimulus energizes (sight, sound, smell) into neural impulses our brain can interpret |
| Psychophysics | study of how physical stimuli are translated into psychological experience |
| Subliminal | stimuli below the absolute threshold (detected less than 50%) |
| Difference threshold | the minimum different between two stimuli required for detection (referred to as Weber's Law - "just noticeable different" |
| Priming | a technique in which the introduction of one stimulus influences how people respond to a subsequent stimulus (example, if a child sees a bag of candy next to a red bench, they might begin looking for or thinking about candy the next time they see a bench |
| Weber’s law | different thresholds |
| Sensory adaptation | diminished sensory awareness due to constant stimulation above the threshold (allows us to focus on new stimuli) |
| Perceptual set | a mental predisposition to perceive one thing not another (you see what you want to see) |
| Wavelength (vision) | the distance from the peak of one wave to the peak of the next |
| Cornea | clear protective outer layer that bends light into the pupil for a focused image |
| Iris | colored muscle that loosens or constricts to control amount of light entering pupil |
| Lens | transparent structure behind the pupil that helps focus an image onto your retina |
| Retina | a layer of photo-receptors cells and glial cells within the eye |
| Accommodation | lens changes shape to accommodate how near or far an object is to bring it into focus |
| Rods and cones | retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray (rods), and fine detail and color (cones) |
| Optic nerve | carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain |
| Blind spot | place where the optic nerve leaves the eye, no receptors present |
| Fovea | A small indentation at the center of the retina that contains the highest concentration of cones |
| Three color theory (Young Helmholtz trichromatic) | retina contains 3 types of color responses, 1 for each red, green, and blue - these colors can be combined to create any color |
| Opponent-process theory | our cones perceive colors in pairs on opposite ends of the color spectrum (ex: white v black, yellow v blue, red v green) |
| Parallel processing | brain's natural mode of procession many functions into building perceptions out of sensory details processed in different areas of the brain |
| Gestalt | principles - closure, common fate, continuation, similarity, figure ground, proximity, and symmetry similarity |
| Figure ground | the organization of the visual field into objects (figures) that stand out from their surroundings (ground) |
| Grouping | the tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups (proximity, continuity, and closure) |
| Depth perception | recognizing 3-dimensional perceptions from 2-dimensional info |
| Visual cliff | an experiment (mostly innate) seeing if a baby would crawl to parent but are encountered with a "visual cliff" |
| Binocular cue | use both eyes to judge the distance of nearby objects |
| Retinal disparity | your brain compares the 2 different images from your eyes to perceive depth (greater the disparity, the closer the object) |
| Monocular cue | depth cues available to each individual eye (relative.. height, size, motion; interposition, linear perception, light & shadow) |
| Phi phenomenon | perceiving a series of slightly varying images as movement (flip-books) |
| Perceptual adaptation (constancy) | perceiving objects as unchanging, even as lighting and retinal imaging changes (a top-down process) |
| Audition | hearing |
| Frequency | length of wave (pitch - how high or low the tone is, depends on frequency) |
| Middle ear | chamber between the eardrum and cochlea (contains 3 tiny bones that vibrate - hammer, anvil, stirrup) |
| Cochlea | a coiled bony, fluid filled tube in the inner ear that sound waves travel through (contains tiny hairs that transfer vibrations to nerve-receptors) |
| Inner ear | the innermost part of the ear containing cochlea, vestibular sac, and semicircular canals |
| Sensorineural hearing loss | auditory nerve damage (impacts loudness, clarity, and range of sound - perceive sound, but can't identify) |
| Conduction hearing loss | damage to eardrum and middle ear structures (can cause total or partial deafness) |
| Place theory | brain determines pitch by the PLACE in the cochlea that starts neural signal (explains high pitched but not low pitched sounds) |
| Frequency theory | rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of tone (we can hear sounds at a higher frequency than our nerves can fire) |
| Gate control theory | the spinal cord acts as a "gate" that blocks or allows pain signals; small receptors receive pain signals, but can be blocked by signals from larger receptors (pain is trumped by other sensations - explains why sensation or intensity of pain changes) |
| Olfaction | smell - a chemical sense - receptor cells in nasal cavity come in contact with molecules, producing smell (smell travels to olfactory bulb, which is close to limbic system) |
| Kinesthesia | receptors in your limbs and joints that tells you the position of your body without looking (without it, you'd have to look at each limb to know where it is) |
| Vestibular sense | monitors your head and body position, helps you keep your balance, sensors located in inner ear, and sensors located in inner ear (without it, you'd have to look at each limb to know where it is) |
| Embodied cognition | influence of body sensation on preferences and judgements (when hold a warm drink, will describe things as "nice, cozy" and when insulted, people will describe room as "cold, sharp") |
| Sensory interaction | all your senses influence each other (eyes influence sound, smell influences taste) |
| Cocktail Party Effect | you focus on your name being said, even if you're in a room with several conversations occurring |
| Color Blindness | lack one of the color receptor cones (also called "color deficient vision") |
Created by:
stephaniev2646
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