Unit 4: Sensation & Perception !
Notes: 11/3 - 11/17
AP Psychology
“cocktail party e ff ect” - while in conversation, your conscious shifts and focuses on the conversation where you heard your name selective attention - focusing on conscious awareness on a particular stimulus sensation - process by which our sensory receptors & nervous system receive information perception - organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events bottom-up processing - process information when we have no prior knowledge, working our way up from the bottom top-down processing - process information when we have prior knowledge, working our way from the top down change blindess - failing to notice change in the environment inattentional blindness - failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere absolute threshold - minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus signal detection theory - detecting the presence of false stimulus; determined by a person’s experience, expectation, motivation, and alertness subliminal - below one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness transduction - process by one form of energy is transformed to neural impulses wavelength - distance from peak of one light/sound wave to the peak of the next hue - dimension of color determined by wavelengths of light (blue, green, etc.) intensity - amount of energy in light or sound wave (brightness or loudness)

Unit 4: Sensation & Perception !
Notes: 11/3 - 11/17 lens - structure behind pupil that changes shape to help focus on image pupil - adjustable opening of eye which light enters
AP Psychology iris - ring of muscle tissue that forms colored portion of eye cornea - where light first enters retina - inner-surface of the eye where receptor rods and cons plus layers of neurons which begin the processing of visual information fovea - central focal point in retina optic nerve - nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain blind spot - point which the optic nerve leaves the eye, as there are no receptor cells rods - retinal receptor cells that detect black, white, gray; necessary for peripheral vision cones - retinal receptor cells that function during well-lit conditions and daylight; give detail and rise to color sensations feature detectors - nerve cells in brain that respond to specific features of stimulus, such as shape, angle or movement parallel processing - processing of many aspects of a problem SIMULTANEOUSLY

Unit 4: Sensation & Perception !
Notes: 11/3 - 11/17
AP Psychology
Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory - theory states retina contains three di ff erent color receptors (combined, can produce ANY color) opponent-process theory - theory that opposing retinal processes enable color
(red/green, yellow/blue, white/black) audition - sense or act of hearing frequency - number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time pitch - a tone’s experienced highness or lowness middle ear - chamber between the cochlea and eardrum, containing three tiny bones (hammer, anvil, stirrup) kinesthesis - system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts vestibular sense - sense of the body movement and position, including balance gate-control theory - spinal cord contains a neurological “gate” that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass

Unit 4: Sensation & Perception !
Notes: 11/3 - 11/17
AP Psychology sensory interaction - principle where one sense influences another (smell of food, influences taste) taste aversion - due to a past experience, sickness, poisoning, the smell/taste of an item causes brain to send survival messages to avoid such item olfactory brain - information from taste buds travels to the temporal lobe which links to memory storage areas; explain why smells can trigger a memory explosion figure-ground - visually organizing objects that stand out from their surroundings depth perception - ability to see in 3D even though retina picks up objects as 2D