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| the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment. |
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| the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events. |
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| analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information. |
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| information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations |
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| the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them. |
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| the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time |
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| a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus ("signal") amid background stimulation ("noise"). Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and level of fatigue. |
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| below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness |
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| the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response. |
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the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable diffference.
also called the just noticeable difference or jnd |
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| to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount) |
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| diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation |
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the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus
cocktail party effect |
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| failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere |
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| spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. The "gate" is opened by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain. |
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| the principle that one sense may influence another as when the smell of food influences its taste |
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| the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts |
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| the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance |
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| in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field. |
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| a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another |
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| a branch of psych that explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be made safe and easy to use. |
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| extrasensory perception (ESP) |
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| the controversial claim that perception can occur apart form sensory input. Said to include telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition. |
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| the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis. |
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| the tendency for vision to dominate all other senses |
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| an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of info into meaningful wholes |
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| the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground) |
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| the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups |
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| the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance |
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| a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals |
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| depth cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence, that depend on the use of two eyes |
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| a binocular cue for perceiving depth. By comparing images from the two eyeballs, the brain computes distance - the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object |
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| a binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object. The greater the inward strain, the closer the object. |
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| depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone. |
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| an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession. |
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| perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent lightness, color, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change |
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