Unit V

Sensation and Perception

• Sensation: your window to the world
• Perception: interpreting what comes in your window

Sensation

• The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive stimulus from the environment

Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Processing

• Bottom-Up: begins with recess receptors and works up to the brains integration of sensory information
• Top-Down: information processing guided by higher level mental proccesses

Absolute Threshold

• The minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time

Difference Threshold

• The minimum difference that a person can detect between two stimuli
• Also known as Just Noticeable Difference

Weber's Law

• The idea that, to perceive a difference between two stimuli, they must differ by a constant percentage; not a constant amount

Signal Detection Theory

• Predicts how we detect a stimulus amid other stimuli
• Assumes that we do not have an absolute threshold

Sensory Adaptation

• Decreases responsiveness to stimuli due to constant stimulation

Selective Attention

• The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus

Cocktail-Party Phenomenon

• The cocktail party effect describes the effect describes the ability to focuses one's listening attention on a single talker among a mixture of conversations and back ground noises, ignoring other conversations
• Form selective attention

Vision

• Our most domination sense
• Visual capture
• Short wavelength= high frequency (bluish colors, high-pitched sounds)
• Long wavelength= low frequency (reddish colors, low-pitched sounds)
• The height if a wave gives us its hue (color)
• The longer the wave the more red
• The shorter the wavelength

Transduction

• Transferring signals into neural impulses 
• Information goes from the senses to the thalamus, then to the various areas in the brain
• Transduction: conversion of one for, of energy to another
• Stimulus energies to neural impulses

Color Vision 

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic (three color) Theory

• Red, blue, green
• Three types of cones can make millions of combinations of colors

Opponent-Process Theory

• The sensory receptors come in pairs
• Red/green
• Yellow/blue
• Black
• If one color is stimulated, the other is inhibited

Hearing

• We hear sound waves 
• The height of the wave gives is the  amplitude of the sound
• The frequency of the wave gives is the pitch of the sound

Transduction in the Ear

• Sound waves hit the eardrum the anvil then hammer then stirrup then oval window
• Everything is just vibrating
• Then the cochlea vibrates
• The cochlea is lines with mucus called basilar membrane
• In basilar membrane there are hair cells
• When hair cells vibrate they turn vibrations into neural impulses which are called organ of corti
• Sent then to thalamus up auditory nerve

Place Theory

• Different hairs vibrate in the cochlea when there are different pitches
• So some hair vibrate when they hear high pitches and others vibrate when they hear low pitches

Frequency Theory

• All the hairs vibrate but at different speeds

Deafness
Conduction Deafness

• Something goes wrong with the sound and the vibration on the way to the cochlea
• You can replace the bones or get a hearing aid to help

Nerve Deafness 

• The hair cells in the cochlea get damaged
• Loud noises can cause this type of deafness 
• No way to replace the hairs
• Cochlea implants is possible

Sensory Interaction 

• The principle that one sense may influence another

Taste 

• We have bumps on our tongue and papillae
• Taste buds are located on the papillae (all over mouth)
• Sweet, salty, sour, bitter, hot/spicy

Unami 

• Favorable meaty, savory taste 

Touch

• Receptors located in our skin
• Gate Control Theory of Pain: spinal cord contains the neurological gate that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass onto the brain

Vestibuler Sense

• Tells us where our body is oriented in space
• Our sense of balance

Kinesthetic Sense

• Tells us where our body parts are
• Receptors located in our muscles and joints chapter

Perception

• The process of organizing and interpreting information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events

Gestalt Philosophy

• The whole greater than the sum of its parts

Figure-Ground Relationships

• The organization of the visual field into objects (figures) that should stand our from their surroundings (ground)

Grouping

• The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into groups that we understand 

Depth Perception

• The ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two dimensions
• Allows us to judge distance

Binocular Cues

• Retina Disparity: a binocular cue for seeing depth
• The closer an object comes to you the greater the disparity is between the two images

Monocular Cues 

• Interposition is when something is blocking our view of seeing something then we think it is actually closer to us
• Relative size when we think two objects are the same but the smaller one is farther away
• Blurry things seem father away, also known as relative clarity
• We refer to texture gradient when things are coarser and they seem closer to us
• We refer to relative height when things are higher up then we can see, and seem farther away
• We refer to relative motion when things that are closer move faster
• We refer to liner perspective when parallel lines seem to converge with distance
• When referring to light and shadow, objects that get less light and look dimmer seem far away

Motion Perception

• We determine by size of things

Phi Phenomenon

• When two or might lights blink in succession

Perceptual Consistency

• When we perceive objects as unchanging even though they have changed

Language and Thought
Language

• The way we speak or write words, and how we communicate with them
• Phenomenons are sound units
• Morphemes are small units that have meaning
• Grammar is used so hat we can communicate and understand each other
• Semantics derive meaning in language (ed)
• Syntax combine words in grammatical sentences
• We learn more through mental pictures and also in words

Language Development

• The babbling stage occurs when an infant is 3-4 months old and they make sounds
• The one-word stage is when a child is 1-2 years old and use single words to tell things or communicate
• The two-word stage is when the child is two and uses two words to communicate

Skinner 

• Believed that we could explain the development of language trough the social learning theory

Chomsky Inborn Universal Grammar

• We do not learn language, acquire it
• We are able to learn any human language with the "learning box"

Whorf's Linguistic Relatively

• Language determines how we think

Kohler's Chimpanzees

• Chimps solve problems
• Animals have signals and communicate

Intelligence 

• The ability to use knowledge, learn, and adapt
• The factor analysis is used by scientist to identify clusters on tests
• Spearman used the factor analysis for his intelligence
• Multiple intelligence was by Gardner by studying savants, including:

1. Visual/Spatial
2. Verbal/Linguistic
3. Logical/Mathematical
4. Bodily/Kinesthetic 
5. Musical/Rythmic
6. Interpersonal
7. Intrapersonal
8. Natural

• Sternberg's 3 Aspects of Intelligence

1. Analytical 
2. Creative
3. Practical

Emotional Intelligence

• Perceive , express, understand, and control emotions

Mental Age

• Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon made the concept, meaning the things someone should know by a particular age
• The IQ Test is also known as the Stanford-Binet Test

Mental Abilities

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale has 11 subtest using factor analysis

Aptitude v. Achievement Test

• Aptitude test is used to see the ability of a person to learn
• Achievement test is used to see what someone has learned

Intelligence Test 

1. Standarization

• For a sample of people
• Makes a bell curve
• The flynn effect is when the performance rises

2. Reliability

• Test yields consistent roles over time

3. Validity

• Test measures what it's suppose to
• Content validity occurs when the test samples behavior, while predictive validity samples future behavior

Intelligence

• Can change depending on type 
• Bell curve is different for whites and blacks
• Math scores different across gender
• Test are bias and need to be

Thinking

• Cognition is thinking, knowing, remembering
• Concepts are grouping of similar things like objects and ideas
• Prototypes is a mental image, category

Solving Problems

• Trial and error
• Algorithms guarantee solving a particular problem
• Heuristics allow is to make judgement and solve
• An insight is a realization about a problem

Obstacles to Solving Problems

• Conformation bias is referred to when someone looks for information that goes to their preconception

Match Problem

• When seeing a problem from a new perspective is called fixation

Mental Set

• Approach a problem the same way as done before

Functional Fixedness

• Thinking of things only by their usual function

Types of Heuristics

• When judging something by how well they match prototype is called representativeness heuristics
• Estimating things by memory is called availability heuristics

Overconfidence

• More confident than correct

Framing

• Has drastic effects because the way it is posed

Belief Bias

• Preexisting beliefs to distort reasoning

Belief Perseverance

• Clinging to initial conception