AP Psych: Unit 3 Vocab

The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment

• sensation

• perception

• inattentional blindness

• parapsychology

Sensory nerve endings that respond to stimuli

• transduction

• sensory receptors

• fovea

• feature detectors

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events

• sensation

• perception

• transduction

• psychophysics

Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information

• absolute threshold

• top-down processing

• bottom-up processing

• signal detection theory

Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations

• absolute threshold

• top-down processing

• bottom-up processing

• signal detection theory

The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus

• sensory adaptation

• parallel processing

• absolute threshold

• selective attention

Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

• inattentional blindness

• signal detection theory

• parallel processing

• dual processing

Failing to notice changes in the environment

• blind spot

• sensory adaptation

• change blindness

• gate-control theory

Conversion of one form of energy into another (stimulus energies into neural impulses)

• psychophysics

• sensation

• perception

• transduction

The study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli and our psychological experience of them

• psychophysics

• parapsychology

• Weber's Law

• transduction