QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
1.The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system
receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.
ANS Sensation
2.The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information,
enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.
ANS Perception
3.Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the
brain's integration of sensory information.
ANS Bottom up processing
4.Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as
when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and
expectations.
ANS Top down processing
5.The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.
ANS Selective attention
6.Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.
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,ANS Inat- tentional blindness
7.Failing to notice changes in the environment.
ANS Change blindness
8.Conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the trans-
forming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into
neural impulses our brain can interpret.
ANS Transduction
9.The study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stim-
uli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.
ANS Psy- chophysics
10.The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50
percent of the time.
ANS Absolute threshold
11.A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint
stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes that there
is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a
person's experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness.
ANS Signal detection theory
12.Below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.
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, ANS Subliminal
13.The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus
predis- posing one's perception, memory, or response.
ANS Priming
14.The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50%
of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable
differ- ence.
ANS Difference threshold
15.The principle that, to be perceived as different, tow stimuli must differ
by a constant minimum percentage (rather than constant amount).
ANS Webers law
16.Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.
ANS Sensory adaptation
17.A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.
ANS Perceptual set
18.(ESP) The controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sen-
sory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.
ANS Extrasensory perception
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