Sense and Nonsense
This threshold is the minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time.
What is the Absolute Threshold?
These photoreceptors help you see color but require light to actually work.
What are cones?
Covering one eye removes access to this binocular cue.
What is Retinal Disparity?
Focusing on one voice in a noisy room demonstrates this kind of attention.
What is Selective Attention?
Your internal sense that guides movement and body position is this.
What is Kinesthesis?
Noticing 2 jelly beans missing from 50, but needing 4 missing from 100, demonstrates this proportional concept.
What is Weber’s law?
You still perceive a tilted table as rectangular thanks to this.
What is shape constancy?
A series of still images appearing to move is explained by this illusion.
What is apparent motion?
Pain signals being blocked by spinal cord mechanisms before reaching the brain.
What is Gate-Control Theory?
Neurons taking turns firing to handle high-frequency sounds
What is Volley Theory?
Converting energy like light or sound into neural impulses describes this process.
What is Transduction?
Recognizing an object’s color even under changing lighting reflects this phenomenon.
What is Color Constancy?
Parallel lines that seem to meet as they stretch into the distance illustrate this cue.
What is Linear Perspective?
Understanding a smudged sentence because context fills the gaps reflects this process.
What is Top-Down Processing
Differences in timing and intensity between your ears help determine this.
What is Sound Localization?
No longer smelling manure after a few minutes occurs because of this process.
What is sensory adaptation?
This binocular cue uses the inward turning of your eyes as an object approaches. Think cross eyed
What is convergence?
Surfaces appearing smoother and less detailed as they get further away
What is Texture Gradient?
This type of processing builds perception from the smallest sensory details upward, with no help from expectations.
What is Bottom-Up Processing?
This depth cue lets you judge distance because closer objects partially block the view of objects behind them
What is Interposition?
Not tasting pizza when you have a cold is probably caused by this.
What is sensory interaction?
This theory explains color vision using pairs of opposing processes, which is why we have afterimages.
What is Opponent-Process theory?
This depth cue lets you judge BOTH the distance and the height of objects in a scene using the same visual information—creating the illusion that objects higher in the visual field are farther away, even if they're not.
What is Relative Height/Relative Size?
This cognitive phenomenon makes you misinterpret a stimulus because of the schema you walked in with—even when the sensory input clearly supports multiple interpretations
What is perceptual set?
Unsteady motion disrupting your balance involves this sensory system.
What is Vestibular Sense?