AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
Guided Reading for Chapter 6: Sensation & Perception, Part I
1. Describe the process of sensation.
2. Define the process of perception.
3. Differentiate between bottom-up processing and top-down processing.
4. Define psychophysics.
5. What is meant by absolute threshold?
6. What is a difference threshold?
7. Define just noticeable difference (JND) with respect to difference threshold.
8. Explain Weber’s Law and provide ONE example.
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
9. Describe Signal Detection Theory AND provide an example OTHER than the one provided in the
PowerPoint.
10. EXPLAIN how psychologists use Signal Detection Theory in experiments. Draw the diagram in the
notes and clearly delineate in WORDS the relationship between signals (presence of or absence of)
and participants’ responses.)
11. What is subliminal stimulation?
12. Define the term priming and explain its relationship to the statement “sometimes we feel what we
do not know and cannot describe”.
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
13. What is meant by sensory adaptation?
14. How do we benefit from sensory adaptation?
15. Does sensory adaptation occur with vision? EXPLAIN!
16. Define Perceptual Set.
17. How do schema affect our perceptions?
18. Describe how other stimuli affect our perceptual sets.
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
VISION
19. What is meant by the term sensory transduction?
20. Which part of the electromagnetic spectrum can the eye detect?
21. Define the term wavelength.
22. How does the length of a light or sound wave relate to frequency and our perception of what we
see or hear?
23. What is meant by hue?
24. Define the term intensity with respect to light or sound waves.
25. What determines the intensity of a wave?
26. Explain how we perceive the intensity of a sound or light wave.
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
27. Define the following structures of the eye and then label the accompanying diagram.
a. Cornea:
b. Pupil:
c. Iris:
d. Lens:
e. Retina:
f. Blind spot:
g. Fovea:
h. Optic Nerve:
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
28. Describe how the structures you defined in #27 guide an incoming ray of light toward the eye’s
receptor molecules (retina).
29. Define the term accommodation with respect to the eye.
30. What is meant by visual acuity?
31. Differentiate between nearsightedness and farsightedness.
32. What is astigmatism?
33. The retina contains the photoreceptor cells that begin the processing of visual information.
Differentiate between rod and cone cells found on the retina.
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
34. What type of cells cluster around the fovea?
35. Why do you see only in black and white in dim or night light?
36. What is dark adaptation?
37. Discuss the function of bipolar cells?
38. Why are cones able to detect fine detail with respect to vision?
39. Describe the function of ganglion cells.
40. Define the optic nerve and describe its composition (what is it made up of)
41. Describe what happens when light hits the retina (be sure to discuss the cells involved in this
process to convert light to a neurochemical impulse – retina, bipolar cells, ganglion cells, optic
nerve).
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
42. Why do cats have better night vision than humans (book!)
43. Where does the optic nerve relay the visual information it receives?
44. Identify the cerebral lobes where visual information is interpreted.
45. What happens at the optic chiasm? (this is review from chapter 2)
46. What are feature detector neurons?
47. What are supercell clusters and how do they assist our interpretation of visual information?
48. Differentiate between serial and parallel processing. (look up serial processing if you don’t know –
this is review).
49. Explain how the brain uses parallel processing to enable us to perceive our external environment.
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
50. Describe the biopsychosocial explanation of vision processing.
51. What happens when a person has blindsight. (review)
52. What is the Young-Heimholtz trichromatic (three color) theory AND describe its weakness.
53. Explain how color vision is additive color mixing.
54. Scientifically, color-blind individuals are really color-deficient. Explain what this statement means.
55. Why are there more color-deficient males than females?
56. Explain the opponent-process theory of color vision.
57. How do afterimages provide evidence of the opponent-process theory?
9
AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
Guided Reading for Chapter 6: Sensation & Perception, Part II
Gestaltism
1. Define Gestalt psychology (look this up please!)
2. How do illusions help us to understand some of the ways we organize stimuli into meaningful perceptions?
3. What is visual capture?
4. When we are presented with a cluster of sensations, we tend to organize them into a gestalt. Explain what
this means.
5. In perception, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. This phrase was coined by Gestalt
psychologists. Provide your insights as to its meaning.
6. Take a look at the Necker cube, pg 235, figure 6.23
a. Describe what you saw when you first looked at it.
b. Identify the individual elements that make up this illusion.
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
c. Explain why the Necker cube provides evidence of Gestalt principles.
7.
Describe the figure-ground relationship.
8. Looking at figure to the left, describe how this stimulus can trigger more than
one perception.
9. Describe the term grouping as it applies to perception.
10. To bring order and form to the sensations we receive about a basic scene, we must follow certain rules for
grouping. Please explain the following Gestalt grouping principles AND provide a figure drawing
illustrating each rule.
a. Proximity
b. Similarity
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
c. Continuity
d. Connectedness
e. Closure
11. Define the term depth perception.
12. What is a visual cliff and explain how it is constructed.
13. Describe the results Gibson and Walk had with infants using the visual cliff. (look in your book)
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
14. What are binocular cues?
15. Try the floating finger sausage exercise (pg 237, figure 6.27)
a. Describe what you perceived.
b. Explain what retinal disparity is and how this exercise evidences this phenomenon.
16. Define convergence and explain how it is a binocular cue for depth perception.
17. How do monocular cues differ from binocular cues?
18. What happens to our perception of color when the context of the environment changes?
13
AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
Guided Reading for Chapter 6: Sensation & Perception, Part III
AUDITION (Hearing)
1. Define the term audition.
2. What type of waves do we experience as sound?
3. What characteristic of sound waves determine their loudness?
4. Define the term frequency with respect to waves.
5. Define pitch and relate it to frequency of sound waves.
6. How are sound waves measured?
7. Define the following structures of the ear and label the diagram on the next page
a. outer ear (pinna)
b. auditory canal
c. eardrum
d. middle ear
--anvil
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
--hammer
--stirrup
--semi-curricular canals
e. inner ear
--cochlea
--oval window
8. Describe the inner membrane of the cochlea.
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
9. Describe the function of the hair cells inside the basil membrane.
10. What happens if the hair cells are damaged?
11. Trace the pathway sound waves take from the outer ear until they are transformed into neural
impulses that travel along the auditory nerve to the brain for interpretation.
12. Describe von Helmholtz’s place theory with respect to how we hear high-pitched sounds.
13. What are the limitations(s) of the place theory?
14. Explain the frequency theory’s alternative explanation of how we detect pitch.
15. What limitations does the frequency theory have?
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
16. Explain the volley principle with respect to our sensing sounds with frequencies above 1000 waves
per second.
17. Explain how we pinpoint sounds.
18. Differentiate between conductive and sensorimotor hearing loss.
19. What is a cochlear implant and how does it work?
20. Why does the deaf culture object to cochlear implants?
Somatosensation (touch)
21. What four sensations make up the sense of touch?
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
22. To perceive other tactile sensations, there has to be stimulation of more than one kind of touch
receptor. Identify which receptors must be stimulated to experience the following sensations:
a. Itching
b. Burning
c. Tickle
d. Wetness
e. Hot
23. Trace the pathway of pressure on the skin from transduction to the point it reaches the
somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobe. Be sure to name all the structures that are involved in
this pathway including the various parts peripheral and central nervous systems.
24. Why is touch important to normal development?
25. What is the purpose of pain?
26. What biological neurotransmitter is involved in pain relief?
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
27. Describe the Gate Control Theory of pain including how it is “opened” and “closed”.
28. What conditions keep the gate open?
29. How can the brain close the pain gate?
30. Other than endorphins, what other ways can we help to close the gate to obtain pain relief?
31. Define nociceptors.
32. Delineate the pathway of the pain circuit.
33. Describe the biopsychosocial perspective on pain.
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
34. What is phantom limb pain?
Taste (Gustation)
35. What are the 5 sensations of taste?
36. Why is taste considered a chemical sense?
37. Where are taste receptor cells located in the mouth and tongue?
38. Differentiate among tasters, supertasters, and non-tasters.
39. Why is saliva important in tasting food we eat?
40. Discuss the survival functions of basic tastes.
41. How does taste travel from the taste buds to the cerebral cortex (remember to name all brain
structures and types of neurons involved).
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
42. What happens to your sense of taste as you grow old?
43. How does alcohol and smoking affect the sense of taste?
44. Describe how the sense of smell is involved in the perception of taste.
45. List the three elements that constitute flavor perception.
46. Explain what is meant by embodied cognition.
Olfaction (Smell)
47. Why is smell , like taste, considered to be a chemical sense?
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
48. Describe the pathway involved in intake and conversion of odor molecules to neural impulses that
are carried to the cerebral cortex for interpretation and organization.
49. Why do we have millions of odor receptor molecules in our noses?
50. Explain how a receptor molecule is stimulated by an odor.
51. What is the olfactory cortex?
52. Why do specific odors easily trigger memories?
53. Define the term anosmia.
Body Position and Movement
54. Differentiate between kinethesis and vestibular sense.
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
55. Explain the functions of the semicircular canals, vestibular sacs, cochlea and cerebellum in the
ability to maintain balance.
Paranormal Phenomena
56. Define the term extrasensory perception (ESP).
57. What is parapsychology?
58. There are three testable forms of ESP. Please define each of these below:
a. telepathy:
b. clairvoyance:
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AP Psychology
Ms. Geraci
Name:
Date:
c. precognition
59. What is psychokinesis (PK)?
60. Why do most research psychologists remain skeptical about claims of ESP?
You are done! Now it is time to push on and get ready for the
upcoming test on sensation and perception!!!!
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