Detecting physical energy with sensory receptors is sensation, while organizing and interpreting that information in the brain is called perception.
Missing Word
perception
Perception is the way sensory information is organized, interpreted and consciously experienced. It depends on sensation but is also shaped by attention, expectations and experience.
Category: Sensation Basics
Question 2
Messages presented below the absolute threshold for conscious awareness are described as subliminal.
Missing Word
subliminal
Subliminal stimuli are received by the sensory system without being consciously noticed. Lab studies show people can process some information outside awareness, but hidden messages have little effect on behavior outside the lab.
Category: Sensation Basics
Question 3
The wave property that determines both the loudness of a sound and the brightness of a light is its amplitude.
Missing Word
amplitude
Amplitude is the distance from a wave's center line to its peak. Larger amplitudes are perceived as louder sounds and brighter lights, while wavelength and frequency determine color and pitch.
Category: Light and Sound Waves
Question 4
The light-sensitive layer of tissue lining the back of the eye, where the photoreceptors are found, is the retina.
Missing Word
retina
The retina contains the rods and cones that transduce light into neural signals. Its central fovea is where images are normally focused.
Category: Vision
Question 5
The opening through which light enters the eye, whose size is adjusted by the muscles of the iris, is the pupil.
Missing Word
pupil
The pupil is the opening at the front of the eye. Muscles of the iris narrow it in bright light and widen it in dim light to control how much light reaches the retina.
Category: Vision
Question 6
Photoreceptors called cones work best in bright light and are essential for seeing color and fine detail.
Missing Word
cones
Cones are concentrated in the fovea and give high visual acuity and color vision. Rods take over in dim light but do not provide color.
Category: Vision
Question 7
Seeing a red patch on a white wall after staring at a green square is a negative afterimage, which supports the opponent-process view of color.
Missing Word
afterimage
An afterimage is a visual sensation that continues after the stimulus is removed. A negative afterimage appears in the opposing color, which is evidence for paired color channels in which one color inhibits the other.
Category: Vision
Question 8
The fluid-filled, snail-shaped structure of the inner ear that contains the receptor cells for hearing is the cochlea.
Missing Word
cochlea
The cochlea holds the basilar membrane and its hair cells, which turn fluid vibrations into neural impulses carried by the auditory nerve.
Category: Hearing
Question 9
The malleus, incus and stapes are the three tiny bones of the middle ear known as the ossicles.
Missing Word
ossicles
The ossicles carry vibrations from the eardrum to the oval window of the cochlea. Damage to them is one cause of conductive hearing loss.
Category: Hearing
Question 10
The chemical sense of taste, which depends on receptor cells clustered in taste buds, is also called gustation.
Missing Word
gustation
Gustation is the technical term for taste. Its receptors sit in taste buds, which are renewed about every 10 to 14 days.
Category: Other Senses
Question 11
The chemical sense of smell, whose receptors line a mucous membrane at the top of the nasal cavity, is called olfaction.
Missing Word
olfaction
Olfaction is the sense of smell. Its receptor cells send signals to the olfactory bulb, which passes them on to the limbic system and the primary olfactory cortex.
Category: Other Senses
Question 12
The sensory signaling of potential harm to the body, carried by free nerve endings and often felt as pain, is called nociception.
Missing Word
nociception
Nociception is the detection of potentially damaging stimuli. Free nerve endings also serve thermoception, the sensing of temperature, but signals of possible harm are specifically nociception.
Category: Other Senses
Question 13
Chemical messages that animals release to communicate with members of their own species, such as signals of reproductive status in rats, are called pheromones.
Missing Word
pheromones
Pheromones are chemical signals sent from one individual to another of the same species. In rats they help trigger mating behavior, while their role in humans is still debated.
Category: Other Senses
Question 14
Max Wertheimer, whose studies of apparent motion in flickering still images launched a new school of thought, is a founder of Gestalt psychology.
Missing Word
Gestalt
Gestalt psychology, founded by Wertheimer with Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, holds that a perception is more than a combination of sensations: the whole is different from the sum of its parts. The German word means form or pattern.
Category: Gestalt Principles
Question 15
Grouping basketball players into teams by the color of their uniforms illustrates the perceptual grouping principle of similarity.
Missing Word
similarity
Similarity is the tendency to group elements that look alike in color, shape or size. It is one of the Gestalt grouping principles, along with proximity, continuity and closure.
Category: Gestalt Principles