Chapter Nine

• What does fallibility refer to?

  The quality of being prone to error or experiencing difficulties in judgement
• What is perceptual distortion?


  An error in the judgement or interpretation of sensory stimuli
• How is a visual illusion defined?

  It is the perception of a visual stimulus that conflicts with how it is in physical reality
• What is agnosia?

  A disorder involving the loss or impairment of the ability to recognise familiar stimuli through the use of one or more senses
• What characterizes supertasters?

  Individuals who have significantly low thresholds for taste stimuli and an unusually high number of taste buds
• What is miraculin?

  A type of protein extracted from the ‘miracle berry’ which alters taste perception in humans
• What is synaesthesia?

  A perceptual phenomenon characterised by the experience of unusual perceptions in one sensory system after another sensory system has been activated
• What does spatial neglect refer to?

  An inability to perceive, report, or orient sensory information located within one side of space