AP Psych unit 3

• Sensation


  Biological sensory inputs
• Sensation

  1. Reception (gather information through receptors)

  2. Transduction (stimulus to neural impulses)

  3. Transmission (sensory neurons to brain)
• Perception


  Personal interpretations
• Bottom-up Processing


  Raw data (stuff you sense for the first time)
• Top-down Processing


  Affected by biases and experiences; use knowledge to understand perceptions
• Absolute Threshold


  Minimum stimulus required to still be detectable
• Subliminal stimuli


  Stimuli which are just in the brain (not exactly external stimuli); it is below threshold
• Difference threshold


  Minimum difference in stimuli to notice difference
• Weber's Law

  Just Noticeable Difference
• Signal Detection Theory


  Do we or do we not detect a stimulus
• Psychological factors affecting signal detection


  • Waking up when we hear our name
• Sensory adaptation


  • Weird smell in a new place
  • Not noticing a clock ticking
  • Chewing gum losing flavor
• Perceptual Sets


  Our expectations change what we see; what we sense can be primed (affected by what happens right before)
• Perceptual Sets


  • Footsteps meaning more after a crashed window
• Selective Attention


  We only truly focus on one thing at a time
• Cocktail Party Effect


  Spotlighting our attention depending on where we want it (ex: to hear our name)
• Selective Inattention


  What we miss
• Selective Inattention


  • Magician using it to make you focus on his hand and miss what's going on in his sleeve
• Change blindness


  Blindness to what changes
• Color


  Seen in varying wavelengths
• Brightness


  Seen in varying wave heights/amplitudes
• Lens accommodation


  Allows for focusing on things that are near and far
• Retina


  Receives information, has receptor cells
• Rods


  For dark, blurry (on retina)
• Cones


  For color, detailed (on fovea)
• Transduction

  Neural impulse moves: Rods/cones → bipolar cells → ganglion cells → optic nerve → supercells in occipital lobe (recognition)
• Parallel Processing


  Brain processes multiple things at the same time
• Black


  Absorbs all light so it shows the absence of light
• White


  Combo of all light waves and it reflects all light
• Young-Helmholtz (Trichromatic Theory)


  Red, green, and blue
• Color blindness


  When one cone color doesn't work
• Opponent Processing Theory


  Neural processing of opposite colors (ex: white vs., black, red vs. green)
• Phi Phenomenon


  A series of images is seen as movement
• Phi Phenomenon


  • Stop motion films
• Figure Ground Perception

  Foreground vs. background (they are two different things)
• Grouping: Gestalts (meaningful patterns)


  • Proximity
  • Similarity
  • Continuity
  • Closure
• Convergence


  Our eyes move together in the same direction
• Retinal disparity

  Our eyes both see slightly differently (try switching from one eye to the other and you will see the slight shift due to your eyes being in slightly different positions)
• Monocular Cues (one eye can see these things)

  • Interposition (when something is in front of something)
  • Blocking (one thing blocks another)
  • Linear perspective (converging lines as farther distance from us)
  • Relative size (far away things appear smaller)
  • Shading
  • Vertical things appear taller
  • Relative motion
  • Relative height (moon looks larger on horizon than up above)
• Perception of distance

  Affects the perception of length