SENSATION & PERCEPTION REVIEW GUIDE
Use the word bank to fill in the blanks below.
Closure
Trichromatic
Pupil
Inattentional blindness
Absolute threshold
Cones
Interposition
Linear perspective
Perceptual set
Clairvoyance
Iris
Bottom-up
Kinesthetic
Fovea
Optic
Proximity
Continuity
Sensory adaptation
Lens
Selective attention
Opponent-process
Vestibular
Rods
Telepathy
Sensory interaction
Retinal disparity
Binocular
Subliminal
Psychokinesis
Blindspot
Stroboscopic
Change blindness
Afterimage
Top-down
Phi phenomenon
Relative height
Difference threshold
1) Sensation uses _________________ processing, in which we detect senses at the entry level and work
our way up to perceptions.
2) Your ability to attend to only one voice in a noisy room is known as _______________________.
3) According to the ________________________ theory of color vision, we only have cones receptive to
blue, red, or green. The combination of these three cones results in all the other colors we see.
4) Failing to see a visible object when our attention is directed elsewhere (not seeing the gorilla while trying to
count the passes between basketball players) is known as ______________________.
5) Your ability to coordinate your arms and legs together to play tennis is known as your
___________________ sense.
6) When you are so focused on a task that you do not noticed a person has swapped places this is known as
___________________________.
7) The ESP ability to move object with one’s thoughts is known as _______________________.
8) The Gestalt principle of filling in gaps to perceive a complete, whole object is known as
__________________________.
9) Your ability to stay balanced on a balance beam is your ______________________ sense, and is due to
the fluid in your inner ear.
10) Perception uses _________________ processing, which uses our experiences and expectations to
organize stimuli and sensations.
11) The fact that smell and taste work together to create flavor is known as _______________________
_____________________.
12) Light enters the eye through the _____________________. The amount of light allowed into this part
of the eye eye is regulated by the colored ________________ surrounding it.
13) According to the ________________________ theory of color vision, we have three sets of cones that
oppose each other (red v. green, blue v. yellow, light v. dark).
14) The ESP ability to read others’ minds is known as ___________________________.
15) The lingering red splotch that we see after staring at a green dot is known as a(n)
_____________________ and supports the opponent–process theory of color vision.
16) The minimal amount of a stimulus we can consciously detect, such as the dimmest light we can see, is the
___________________ ___________________.
17) The clearest images we see are projected onto the ________________ of the retina at the back of our
eyes.
18) The photoreceptors for vision are located on the _________________ at the back surface of our
eyeballs; the ____________________ are sensitive to black/white while the ______________ are
sensitive to color.
19) Our _____________ nerve transmits visual messages from the eye to the brain’s visual cortex.
20) The smallest change in stimulus, such as the smallest change in volume we can detect, is known as the
________________ ________________.
21) By changing its curvature and thickness, the _________________ focuses a nearby or far away object
onto the retina.
22) Where the optic nerve hits the back of each eye is known as the __________ _________ because we
have no receptors for vision there.
23) Being able to see into the future, and therefore know of events that have not yet happened, is known as the
ESP quality of ___________________________.
24) When we become less sensitive to a stimulus over time, such as the feeling of our clothes on our skin after
we have worn them all day, is known as __________________ __________________.
25) Information presented below our absolute threshold for sensations is considered
________________________ perception.
26) The tendency to organize stimuli into smooth, continuous patterns is known as the Gestalt principle of
_____________________.
27) Perceiving depth because an object blocks in front of another object is known as the monocular cue of
___________________________.
28) When we group objects together because they are nearer to one another, we are using the Gestalt principle
of _______________________.
29) ______________ _______________ means that our left and right eyes receive a slightly different
perspective on an image but our brain combines them to create depth.
30) The illusion of movement that results when two adjacent stationary spots of light blink on and off in quick
succession is called the ___________ ___________________________.
31) Parallel lines appear to converge in the distance due to the monocular depth cue of
__________________ _____________________.
32) The brain interprets a rapid series of slightly varying stationary images as motion due to the
_______________________ motion.
33) Any depth cue that requires two eyes is known as a ____________________ cue.
34) Objects lower in our visual field are perceived as closer than those higher in our visual field due to the
monocular depth cue of ______________________ ________________.
35) A mental predisposition that influences perception is called a ________________ _______.