Basic Concepts
This term refers to the study of how physical energy relates to psychological experiences.
What is psychophysics?
This is the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina.
What is accommodation?
This is the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second).
What is frequency?
This sense involves sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.
What is kinesthesia?
The ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.
What is perceptual adaptation?
This is the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time.
What is absolute threshold?
These cells are sensitive to detail and color.
What are cones?
A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.
What is the cochlea?
This is the system for sensing the position and movement of the head.
What is the vestibular sense?
This theory predicts how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid background noise.
What is signal detection theory?
The principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage rather than a constant amount.
What is Weber’s Law?
This part of the eye contains the receptor cells that begin the process of visual sensation and perception.
What is the retina?
Hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.
What is conductive hearing loss?
Receptors for this sense are located in the top of the nasal cavity.
What is olfaction?
These are the four types of perceptual constancy, which regardless of any changes, our top-down processes allow us to recognize objects.
What is the color, brightness, shape and size?
This type of processing starts with the sensory receptors and works up to higher levels of processing.
What is bottom-up processing?
These nerve cells in the brain respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement.
What are feature detectors?
This theory explains how we sense the high pitch through the frequency of neural impulses traveling up the auditory nerve.
What is the frequency theory?
This taste sensation is often triggered by protein-rich foods.
What is umami?
The controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.
What is extrasensory perception (ESP)?
This type of processing constructs perceptions from the sensory input by drawing on our experience and expectations.
What is top-down processing?
This theory explains color vision based on three different cone types: red, green, and blue.
What is the trichromatic (three-color) theory?
This term describes how hearing loss results from damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves.
What is sensorineural hearing loss?
This type of pain involves burning, aching, or itching that is caused by damage to nerve fibers.
What is neuropathic pain?
The organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings.
What is figure-ground?