Sensation & Perception
This is the process of converting physical energy, like light or sound waves, into neural messages.
What is transduction?
The retina contains these two types of specialized cells that are sensitive to light.
What are rods and cones?
The perceived pitch of a sound is determined by this physical property of sound waves.
What is frequency?
These are the primary receptors for taste, located on the tiny bumps of our tongue.
What are taste buds?
What term describes the process when sensory systems become less responsive to constant stimulation?
What is sensory adaptation?
This is the minimum amount of physical energy required to produce a sensory experience, detected 50% of the time.
What is the absolute threshold?
This part of the eye, which lacks photoreceptors, is where the optic nerve exits.
What is the blind spot?
This part of the ear contains three tiny bones—the hammer, anvil, and stirrup—which transfer vibrations to the inner ear.
What is the middle ear?
This sense provides information about the position and movement of various body parts through receptors in our muscles, joints, and tendons.
What is the kinesthetic sense?
What type of processing involves expectations and prior knowledge shaping raw sensory data?
What is top-down processing?
This theory states that the size of a just noticeable difference (JND) is directly proportional to the intensity of the original stimulus.
What is Weber's Law?
This theory of color vision suggests that we have three types of cones, each sensitive to different wavelengths corresponding to red, green, and blue light.
What is the trichromatic theory?
This part of the inner ear is a spiral-shaped, fluid-filled structure that contains the auditory receptors.
What is the cochlea?
This is a complex experience that results from a combination of taste sensations and olfactory input (smell).
What is flavor perception?
What illusion involves seeing gray spots at the intersections of a white grid?
What is the Hermann grid illusion?
This theory explains that our detection of a stimulus is not only based on its intensity but also on factors like background noise and our own motivation and expectations.
What is signal detection theory?
The visual system perceives this not based on an absolute value, but on the relative changes in light intensity across a scene.
What is brightness?
This unique quality of a sound allows us to distinguish between different instruments playing the same note.
What is timbre?
These naturally occurring chemical signals are primarily detected by the olfactory system and may have subtle influences on human behavior.
What are pheromones?
What illusion involves seeing gray spots at the intersections of a white grid?
What is the Hermann grid illusion?
The brain never directly receives information from the outside world; instead, it relies on this type of information from the sensory system, which is delivered as coded neural messages.
What is secondhand information?
This phenomenon, which can explain afterimages, suggests that color is processed in opponent pairs such as red-green and blue-yellow.
What is the opponent-process theory?
This type of hearing loss is caused by damage to the middle ear, whereas sensorineural hearing loss is caused by damage to the inner ear or auditory nerve.
What is conductive hearing loss?
This theory of pain suggests that a neural "gate" in the spinal cord can open or close to control the flow of pain signals to the brain.
What is the gate-control theory?
What hypothesis suggests cultural environment influences susceptibility to geometric illusions like the Müller-Lyer?
What is the Carpentered World Hypothesis?