Basic Principles
This process involves the conversion of physical energy into neural impulses.
What is transduction?
These two types of photoreceptors in the retina are responsible for different aspects of vision.
What are rods and cones?
This structure in the inner ear is responsible for converting sound waves into neural impulses.
What is the cochlea?
This sense provides information about the position and movement of body parts.
What is the kinesthetic sense?
This rare condition impairs a person's ability to recognize faces, even those of close friends and family.
What is prosopagnosia?
This phenomenon occurs when we fail to notice an unexpected stimulus that is in plain sight.
What is inattentional blindness?
What causes our blind spot?
The area in our visual field where we have no photoreceptors due to the optic nerve exiting the eye.
What makes supertasters different from nontasters?
Supertasters have more taste buds than nontasters.
This theory proposes that the spinal chord can control the pain signals transmitted to the brain.
What is gate-control theory?
German principles that describe how we organize visual information into meaningful patterns.
What is Gestalt?
This rare condition causes individuals to perceive a blending of senses, such as "seeing" sounds or "tasting" colors.
What is synesthesia?
This theory explains color vision by proposing three types of cones sensitive to different wavelengths of light (Red, Green, Blue).
What is trichromatic theory?
How are we able to localize sounds?
Differences in loudness of sound and time heard between two ears
This sense, located in the inner ear, provides information about balance and spatial orientation.
What is the vestibular sense?
This is the minimum amount of stimulus energy required to detect a stimulus 50% of the time.
What is absolute threshold?
Explain the difference between top-down and bottom-up processing.
Top-Down: Context and expectations shape perception
Bottom-Up: Information from stimuli are used to generate perception
This binocular cue for depth perception relies on the slight difference between the images received by each eye.
What is retinal disparity?
What causes sensorineural hearing loss?
Caused by damage to the inner ear (cochlea, cillia) or auditory nerve.
This phenomenon occurs when amputees experience sensations in their missing limb.
What is phantom limb sensation?
Provide 3 examples of monocular cues.
Linear Perspective
Relative Size
Relative Clarity
Texture Gradient
Interposition
How does Weber's Law add on to Just Noticeable Difference?
The law states that the just noticeable difference in a stimulus is proportional to the magnitude of that stimulus.
Provide three examples of the perceptual phenomenon allows us to perceive objects as having constancy despite changes.
Color constancy
Size Constancy
Shape Constancy
This theory explains how we perceive high-frequency sounds based on the location of vibration along the cochlea.
What is place theory?
Explain dizziness and motion sickness using the process of transduction for the vestibular sense. (use the names for the anatomical parts involved)
The fluid-filled vestibular sacs and semicircular canals have hair-like cells that move when the head moves.
When a person moves/spins, the fluid continues to move after the person stops moving, which creates a false sense of motion leading to dizziness/motion sickness.
While attending a crowded unified basketball with lots of noise, Anna is able to focus on her conversation with her mom. What perception principle is Anna using to focus?
Cocktail party effect