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Cards In This Set
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Sensation
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The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.
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Perception
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The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.
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Bottom-up processing
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Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information.
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Top-down processing
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Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.
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Transduction
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Conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret.
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Psychophysics
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The study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.
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Absolute threshold
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The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.
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Signal detection theory
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A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness.
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Subliminal
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Below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.
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Priming
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The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.
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Difference threshold
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The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference (or jnd).
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Weber's law
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The principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a given percentage (rather than a given amount).
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Sensory adaptation
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Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation.
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Perceptual set
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A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.
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