• Threshold-> a dividing point between energy levels that do not have a detectable effect
• Absolute Threshold-> for a specific type of sensory input is the minimum amount of stimulation that an organism can detect
• Absolute Threshold is the Stimulus Intensity 50% of the time
• Just Noticeable Difference(JND)->the smallest difference in stimulus intensity that a specific sense can detect

• the detection of stimuli involves decision processesas well as sensory processes which are both influenced by a variety of factors besides stimulus intensity
• Noise-> background distractions that lower the chance of detection of a stimulus
• Detectability is measured in terms of probability and depends on decision-making processes as well as sensory processes

• Light -> form of electromagnetic radiation that travels as a wave at the speed of light
• Amplitude->affects perception of brightness(height)
• Wavelength->Affects perception of colour(Distance between peaks)

• Two purposes: channel light to the Neural Tissue that recieves it(retina) and house the retina
• Lens-> Transparent eye structure that focuses the light rays falling on the Retina
• Nearsightedness->caused by the Retina, close objects are seen clearly, but distant objects appear blurry
• Farsightedness-> distant objects are seen clearly, close objects appear blurry
• Pupil-> the opening into the center of the Iris that permits light tp pass into the rear chamber of the eye
• Iris-> Regulates the amount of light entering the pupil by controlling the size of the pupil
• Retina-> Neural Tissue lining the inside back surface of the eye; it absorbs light, processes images and sends visual information to the brain
• Optic Disk-> a hole in the retina where the Optic Nerve Fibres exit the eye

• Visual Illusions-> An inexplicable discrepancy between the appearance of visual stimulus and its physical reality
• Impossible Figures-> Objects that can be represented in two-dimensional pictures but cannot exist in 3D space

• sensation-> result of your body's senses sensing something( ex.heat, cold, pain, dryness)
• perception->how you view your world,what you see and fail to see in it

• Bottom-up processing-> progresses from individual elements to whole elements
• Top-down processing-> progresses from the whole to the individual elements

• Figure(=Object being looked at; appear closer and stand out) and Ground(=background)
• Proximity->elements that are close to one another are grouped together
• Closure-> Viewers Supply Missing Elements to close or complete Familiar figures
• Similarity->elements that are similar are grouped together
• Simplicity-> Viewers organize elements in the simplest way possible
• Continuity-> Viewers  see elements in ways that produce smooth continuation

• Distal Stimuli-> Stimuli that lies in the Distance
• Proximal Stimuli-> the stimulus energies that impinge directly on sensory receptors
• Perceptual Hypothesis-> an inference about which distal stimuli could be responsible for the proximal stimuli sensed 
• Our perceptual hypotheses are guided by our experience based expectations

• Ewald Hering
• colour vision holds that color perception depends on receptors that make antagonistic response to three pairs of colours
• red vs green
• yellow vs blue
• black vs white

• the illusion of movement created by presenting visual stimuli in rapid succession

• Subtractive:works by removing some wavelength of light, leaving less light than thier originally is
• Additive: works by superimposing lights, putting more light in the mixture than exists in any one light by itself

• Colour Blindness: Inability to distinguish variety among colours
• Afterimage:a visual image that persists after a stimulus is removed

• Gustatory System-> the sensory system for taste
• Olfactory system-> the sensory system for smell
• Taste Buds-> receptive for taste in the mouth
• Cilia->receptive for smell in the nose
• Receptive fields for touch-> when touched neurons fire to the brain alerting it
• Kinesthetic System->monitors the position of various parts of the body
• Vestibular System-> Responds to gravity and keeps you informed of your body's location in space; provides sense of balance

• Auditory Localization-> locating the source of a sound in space
• Loudness and Timing of sounds are most important for finding the source of sound
• Place Theory-> Perception of Pitch corresponds to the vibration of different plaes along the Basilar Membrane
• Frequency theory-> Perception of Pitch corresponds to the rate/frequency at which the entire Basilar Membrane Vibrates
• Volley Principle->Groups of Auditory Nerve Fibers fire Neural Impulses in rapid succession creating Volleys of Impulses

• Pain messages are transmitted to the brain via two different pathways that pass through different areas of the thalamus 
• fast pathway->registers localized pain and relays it to the cortex in a fraction of a second
• slow pathway->lags a second or two behind the fast pathway

• Electroencephalograph(EEG)-> measures electrical activity in the brain
• 4 frequency bands:
• Beta-> 13-24 cps- Normal waking thought, problem solving
• Alpha->8-12 cps- Deep Relaxation, Blank Mind, Meditation
• Theta->4-7 cps- Light Sleep
• Delta->1-3 cps- Deep Sleep
• Unconscious needs wishes and conflicts influence behaviour and feelings

• Stage 1: Brief Transitional stage of Light Sleep; hypnic jerks(muscle contractions) happen in this stage
• Stage 2: Brief bursts of higher frequency Brain Waves; Respriration rate, heart rate, muscle tension and body temperature begin to decline
• Stage 3 and 4: Slow wave sleep; high amplitude, low frequency delta waves become prominent in EEG recordings
• Stage 5: REM sleep(rapid eye movement); high frequency, low amplitude brain waves, and vivid dreaming, deep stage of sleep, muscles become paralyzed
• REM sleep occurs about 4 times a night

• sleep deprivation impairs reaction time, attention, coordination, decision making etc
• Insomnia- chronic problems in getting adequate sleep
• Narcolepsy- disease cuaseing sudden onsets of sleep during waking periods
• Sleep apnea- frequent reflexive gasping for ait that awakens the person and disrupts sleep
• Nightmares- Anxiety arousing dreams that lead to awakening, usually during REM sleep
• Night Terrors- Abrupt awakening from non REM sleep accompanied by intense autonomatic arousal and feeling of Panic
• Somnambulism- Sleepwalking

• Ascending Reticular Activating System- Fibers in Reticular formation that influence sleep and rising from sleep
• Cutting Fibers= continuous sleep
• Electric Stimulating Fibers= Awakening

• caused by anxiety, tension, emotional problems, health problems
• Sedatives and sleeping pills are medication for insomnia
• reduce amount of REM and leave sluggish effect the next day

• REM dreams: More visual, vivid, story-like dreams
• Non REM dreams: not as brilliant as REM dreams
• Lucid Dreaming: People realize they are dreaming in their dream
• mental thought processes while asleep are close to conscious thought processes
• most dreams unfold in familiar settings, with familiar characters
• themes of dreams are common: sex, aggression, misfortune
• People usually dream about themselves
• Men and Women have slightly different dreams reflecting their social roles
• People often dream about what is going on in their lives
• Dreams are usually waking ideas and emotional worries
• Thoughts we try to suppress during the day come out in our dreams
• Dreams can incorporate physical stimuli like having water poured on you being interpreted in the dream as rain, water etc

• Freud theorized dreams are "wish fulfillment"
• Manifest content: the plot of the dream as a surface level
• Latent content: disguised and hidden meaning of the events in the plot
• Rosalind Cartwright theorized dreams are opportunities to work through everyday problems and emotional issues in waking life
• Hobson and McCarley theorized that dreams are side effects of Neural- Activation Synthesis, downplays the effect of emotions on dreams

• systematic procedure that typically produces a hightened state of suggestability
• Hypnotic Phenomena:
• Anesthesia: hypnosis can be used to relieve pain
• Hallucination: Subjects "see" things that are not there
• Disinhibition: Subjects do things that they normally would not do
• Posthypnotic Suggestions: suggestions made during hypnosis effect a subjects later behaiour

• Hypnosis as Role Playing: people are just role-playing what is socially acceptable to be hypnotized
• Dissociation: Splitting off of Mental processes into two seperate, simultaneous streams of awareness
• Divided consciousness: is a normal experience such as driving a car, but you dont remember specific things about it. You just do it.

• a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a colour

• Psychoactive Drugs- Chemical substances that modify mental, emotional, or behavioural functioning
• Narcotics/Opiates: drugs derived from Opium that relieve pain( heroine, morphine)
• Sedatives: sleep inducing drugs that decrease Central Nervous System Activation and Behavioural Activity( sleeping pills, barbiturates)
• Stimulants: drugs that increase Central Nervous system activation and Behavioural Activity(Caffeine, Nicotine, Cocaine, Amphetamines)
• Hallucinogens: Drugs that have powerful effect upon mental and emotional functioning, causing distortions in sensory and perceptual experiences(LSD,Shrooms)
• Cannabis: hemp plant from which marijuana, hashish and THC are derived
• Alcohol: beverages containing ethyl alcohol
• MDMA: compound drug related to both Amphetamines and hallucinogens

• type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus
• Conditioned fears: ex. fears of bridges
• Emotional responses: ex. smell reminding you of someone
• physical responses: ex. sexual arousal, drug tolerance
• Basic Processes:
• Acquisition: initial stage of learning something
• Extinction: the gradual weakening and disappearance of a conditioned response tendency
• Spontaneous recovery:reappearance of an extinguished response after a period of no exposure to the conditioned stimulus
• Stimulus generalization: occurs when an organism that has learned a response to a specific stimulus responds in the same way to new stimulus that are similar to the original stimulus
• Stimulus Discrimination:occurs when an organism that has learned a response to a specific stimulus does not respond in the same way to a new stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus
• Higher order conditioning: a conditioned stimulus functions as if it were an unconditioned stimulus

• a form of learning in which responses come to be controlled by their consequences
• Reinforcement: occurs when an event following a response increases the organisms tendency to make that response

• Instinctive Drift: when an animal's innate response tendencies interfere with conditioning processes
• Taste Aversions: discovered link between taste and smell and nausea over a long period of time, but not other senses
• Latent learning: learning that is not apperent from behaviour when it first occurs
• Observational learning: when an organism's responding is influenced by the observation of others who are called models
• 4 processes in Observational Learning: Attention, Retention, Reproduction, Motivation

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• Attention: focusing awareness on a narrowed range of Stimuli or events
• Focusing your attention in 2 or more places at once causes a large reduction in memory performance and motor performance

• Structural Encoding= Shallow Processing: Emphasizes the Physical Structure of the Stimulus
• Phonetic Encoding= Intermediate Processing: Emphasizes what a word sounds like
• Semantic Encoding= Deep Processing: emphasizes the meaning of Verbal Input
• Levels of processing theory: Proposes that deeper levels of processing result in longer lasting memory codes

• Short Term Memory (STM): a limited capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for about 20 seconds
• Model of "working memory" of short term memory:
• Phonological loop: facilitates the acquisition of language
• Visuospatial sketchpad: permits people to temporarily hold and manipulate visual images
• Central execution system: controls deploying, switching, and dividing attention
• Episodic Buffer: temporary Limited capacity storage for integrating working memory to long term memory

• Long term memory(LTM): an unlimited capacity store that can hold information over lengthy periods of time
• Flashbulb memories: Usually Vivid and detailed Recollections of Momentous events; often innacurate memories
• Conceptual Hierarchy: a multilevel Classification system based on common properties among items
• Schema: an organized cluster of knowledge about a particular object or event abstracted from previous experience with the object or event
• Semantic network: consists of Nodes Representing Concepts, Joined together by pathways that Link related concepts
• Parallel Distributed Processing Models (PDP): cognitive processes depend on patterns of activation in highly interconnected computational networks that resemble neural networks

• Tip of the tongue Phenomenon: the temporary inability to remember something you know, accompanied by a feeling that it is just out of reach
• Misinformation Effect: Occurs when Participants recall of an event they witnessed is altered by introducing misleading post-event information
• Imagination Inflation: a few moments of belief that a person has had an experience they havent allows them to make up details that havent occured

• Source monitoring: Involves making attributions about the origin of memories
• Source monitoring error: occurs when a memory derived from one source is misattributed to another source
• Reality monitoring: process of deciding whether memories are based on external sources(one's perception of actual events) or internal sources(one's thoughts and imaginations)

• Retention: refers to the proportion of material remembered
• Recall: measures of retention requires subjects to reproduce information from an array of options
• Relearning: measure of retention requires a subject to memorize information a second time to determine how much time or how many practice trials are saved by having learned it before
• why we forget: Ineffective encoding, decay, interference, retrieval failure, motivated forgetting

• Interference Theory: people forget information because of competition from other material
• Retroactive Interference: occurs when new information impairs the retention of previously learned information
• Proactive Interference: occurs when previously learned information interfers with the retention of new information

• Phonemes: smallest speech units in a language that can be distinguished perceptually (sounds)
• Morphemes: smallest units of meaning in a language. (words)
• Semantics: concerned with understanding the meaning of words and word combinations(meaning)
• Syntax: system of rules that specify how words can be arranged into sentences 

• 1-3 months old= learning Phonemes/Sounds
• 4-8 month old= learning Morphemes/Words
• 8 months old= Learning Semantics/meanings
• Combining words= 2 years old
• Bilingualism: learning more than one language