Psychology: Sensory Receptors and Nervous System

CHAPTER 6 (TERMS) SENSATION The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment. PERCEPTION is the process by which sensory input is organized and interpreted by the brain (enabling us to recognize meaningful objects & events) BOTTOM- UP PROCESSING involves analysis that begins with the sensory receptors, at the entry level, with information flowing from the sensory receptors to the brain. TOP DOWN PROCESSING is information processing guided by high-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions by filtering information through our experience and expectations TRANSDUCTING (ESSENTIAL OILS & TEAS) refers to the process of transforming stimulus energies into neural impulses. • stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret ABSOLUTE THRESHOLD The minimum amount of stimulation a person needs to detect a stimulus 50 percent of the time. • Tested by defining the point where half the time a stimulus is detected and half the time it is not • That 50-50 point defines the absolute threshold SIGNAL DETECTION Predicts how and when we will detect a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise) Signal detection theory emphasizes that personal expectations and motivations influence the level of absolute thresholds. SUBLIMINAL Input below the absolute threshold for conscious Awareness PRIMING Activating, often unconsciously, associations in our mind, thus setting us up to perceive, remember, or respond to objects or events in certain Ways DIFFERENCE THRESHOLD Is the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. • A 5 decibel increase in the volume will be noticed at a starting point of 40 decibels, but not at 110 decibels. • Experienced as a just noticeable difference (or jnd) WEBER'S LAW For an average person to perceive a difference, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (not a constant amount); the exact proportion varies, depending on the stimulus (sight, weight, touch) SENSORY ADAPTATION Sensory adaptation refers to diminished sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus. • Aids focus by reducing background chatter • Influences how the world is perceived in a personally useful way (baseball – “two”) – Our sensory receptors are sensitive to novelty; sensory adaptation even influences how we perceive emotions PERCEPTUAL SET Mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another • Set of mental tendencies and assumptions that affects, topdown, what we hear, taste, feel, and see • I had two surgeries in July. • I was anticipating nausea postop. • Did I experience greater nausea due to my perceptual set? RETINA where it begins the process of transduction into neural impulses to be sent out through the optic nerve contains two types of receptors: rods and cones RODS help us see the black and white actions in our peripheral view and in the dark CONES help us see sharp colorful details in bright light OPTIC NERVE The rods and cones send messages to bipolar and ganglion cells and on to the optic nerve. Once neural signals enter the optic nerve, they are sent through the thalamus to the visual cortex. YOUNG HELMHOLTZ TRICHROMATIC (THREE COLOR THEORY) Retina’s red, green, and blue cones respond in varying degrees to different color stimuli. • All the colors we perceive are created by light waves stimulating combinations of these cones. OPPONENT-PROCESS THEORY Cones responses are then processed by opponent-process cells. People missing red cones or green cones have trouble differentiating red from green, and thus have trouble reading the numbers above. GESTALT An organized whole • Gestalt psychologists propose principles used to organize sensations into meaningful wholes. • In perception, the whole may exceed the sum of its parts. • We filter incoming information and construct perceptions. FIGURE-GROUND The organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the Ground DEPTH PERCEPTION The ability to see objects in three dimensions, although the images that strike the retina are two dimensional • Allows us to judge distance • Is present, at least in part, at birth in humans and other animals VISUAL CLIFF The visual cliff is a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants. • Most infants refuse to crawl across the visual cliff • Crawling, no matter when it begins, seems to increase an infant's fear of heights BINOCULAR CUE Two eyes help perception of depth RETINAL DISPARITY Binocular cue for perceiving depth • By comparing images from the retinas in the two eyes, the brain calculates distance • Used by 3-D film makers MONOCULAR CUE Depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone • Relative height and Relative size • Interposition and Linear perspective • Light and shadow and Relative motion PERCEPTUAL CONSTANCY Objects are perceived as unchanging (consistent color, brightness, shape, and size), even under different lighting conditions, at different distances and angles Seeing consistent color helps us see the three sides as all being yellow, because our brain compensates for shading. We interpret three same-color blue dots, with shades that are not adjusted for shading, as being of three different colors. PERCEPTUAL ADAPTATION Ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field (George Stratton) AUDITION the sense or act of hearing COCHLEA (kok-lee-uh) In the inner ear, waves of fluid move from the oval window over the cochlea’s “hair” receptor cells. These cells send signals through the auditory nerves to the temporal lobe of the brain. NOCICEPTORS are sensory receptors in our skin that detect hurtful temperatures, pressure, or chemicals. (Also found in muscles and organs). The pain circuit refers to signals that travel to the spinal cord, up through small nerve fibers,*which then conduct pain signals to the brain GATE-CONTROL THEORY The spinal cord contains a neurological “gate”that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. • The gate-control theory suggests that pain is experienced when small nerve fibers activate and open a neural gate in the spinal cord. • It is closed by activity in larger fibers (via acupuncture, massage, electrical stimulation) or by information coming from the brain. Acetamin PHANTOM LIMB SENSATIONS As the brain produces false sounds (tinnitus) and sights (aura, lights with migraines), it can produce pain (via stored memories) or other perceptions from the amputation of arms or legs DISSOCIATION our sense of taste influenced by learning, expectations, and perceptual Bias OLFATIONS Humans have some 20 million olfactory receptors. A bloodhound has 220 million. Humans can detect about 10,000 different odors. Smell, called olfaction KINESTHESIA System for sensing the position and movement of individual body Parts VESTIBULAR SENSE Sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance https://irp.nih.gov/scibites/the-bodys-sixth-sense • How it works: fluid-filled chambers in the inner ear (vestibular sacs and semicircular canals) have hairlike receptors that send messages about the head’s position to the cerebellum The Other Senses: Body Position and Movement SENSORY INTERACTION The principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences taste CHAPTER 7 LEARNING Psychologists define learning as the process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring information or behaviors. ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING Learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning). STIMULUS its an event or situation that evokes a response. COGNITIVE LEARNING The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING Repeated exposure to two stimuli occurring in sequence, we associate those stimuli (lightning/thunder) with each other. OPERANT CONDITIONING Child associates his “response” (behavior) with consequences. Child learns to repeat behaviors (saying “please”) which were followed by desirable results (cookie). Child learns to avoid behaviors (yelling “gimme!”) which were followed by undesirable results (scolding or loss of dessert). BEHAVIORISM Behaviorism was the view that psychology should scientifically study behavior without reference to cognitive processes. NEUTRAL STIMULUS (NS) In classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS (US) In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (US) (such as food in the mouth) UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE (UR) In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally—naturally and automatically—triggers an unconditioned response (UR) (such as dog food) CONDITIONED RESPONSE (CR) In classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS) CONDITIONED STIMULUS (CS) In classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus, that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR) ACQUISITION Initial stage, When one links a neutral stimulus (bell) and an unconditioned stimulus (food) so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response (salivation) EXTINCTION Diminishing of a conditioned response (salivation), Occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY Reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response (salivation) GENERALIZATION Tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses DISCRIMINATION Learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus (which predicts the unconditioned stimulus) and other irrelevant stimuli OPERANT BEHAVIOR Is behavior that operates on the environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli. REINFORCEMENT Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows. SHAPING Gradually guiding behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT Increases behaviors by presenting positive reinforcers. Any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response is called a positive reinforcer. NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT Increases behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response. PRIMARY REINFORCER Is unlearned; innately reinforcing stimuli, such as those that satisfy biological (eating) or social (affirmation) needs (Starbucks, church, ...) CONDITIONED REINFORCER A stimulus that acquires reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer is called a conditioned reinforcer. FIXED INTERVAL Slow, unsustained responding Reinforcer: paid once a week VARIABLE INTERVAL slow, steady responding Reinforcer: patted on the back occasionally FIXED RATIO high rate of responding Reinforcer: paid for every 10 units of work completed VARIABLE RATIO High, consistent responding, even if reinforcement stops (resists extinction) Reinforcer: unpredictably getting a “good job” comment about some unit of work you completed PUNISHMENT administers an undesirable consequence or withdraws something desirable in an attempt to decrease the frequency of a behavior. Positive punishment Presenting a negative consequence after an undesired behavior is exhibited, making the behavior less likely to happen in the future. Negative punishment Removing a desired stimulus after particular undesired behavior is exhibited, resulting in reducing behavior in future. LATENT LEARNING is learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it. OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING Higher animals, especially humans, learn without direct experience by watching and imitating others MODELING is the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior MIRROR NEURONS Frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. CHAPTER 8 MEMORY is best defined as the persistence of learning through the storage and retrieval of information RECALL A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank Test RECOGNITION A measure of memory in which the person identifies items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice Test RELEARNING A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again the second, third, ... time ENCODING refers to getting information into memory STORAGE retention of encoded information over time RETRIEVAL getting information out of memory SENSORY MEMORY We first record to-be-remembered information as a fleeting sensory memory, immediate, very brief recording of sensory information SHORT TERM MEMORY From there, we process information into short-term memory (activated memory that holds a few items briefly), where we encode it through rehearsa LONG TERM MEMORY Finally, information moves into long-term memory, the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system of knowledge, skills, and experiences, for later retrieval. Modifying the Model: More goes on in short-term memory besides rehearsal; this is now called working memory. Some information seems to go straight from sensory experience into