Psychology Exam 1 Study - Creighton University Exam All Possible Questions and Answers with complete solution

sensation - how sensory receptors receive and represent stimulus energies from the environment Perception - how we organize and interpret the sensory information, drawing meaning from the world around us neuron - a cell that conducts electrochemical signals and is the basic unit of the nervous system synesthesia - stimulation of one sense triggers another (feeling colors) Interneurons (association neurons) - neurons that carry messages from motor to sensory nerves myelin sheath - prevents signals in adjacent cells from interfering with each other neurogenesis - immature stem cells give birth to new neurons absolute threshold - the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time difference threshold - threshold for distinguishing that two stimuli are different signal detection theory - a theory that divides the detection of a sensory signal into a sensory process or a decision process sensory process - depends on the intensity of the stimulus decision process - influenced by the observer's response biasGABA - a major inhibitory neurotransmitter Acetylcholine - enables muscle action, learning, and memory Dopamine - A neurotransmitter associated with movement, attention and learning and the brain's pleasure and reward system. glutamate - A major excitatory neurotransmitter; involved in memory sensory adaptation - diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation selective attention - the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus inattentional blindness - failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere trichromatic theory of color vision - The eye has 3 types of color receptors (red, green, and blue) Cones work in 3's opponent-process theory - the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision. For example, some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red; others are stimulated by red and inhibited by green