Unit 3.1 Fiveable

What is an example of sensory adaptation?

• Not smelling the grass after being outside for a while

• Feeling a significant difference between a 50 lb weight and a 100 lb weight

• Detecting a faint smell, sound, or ray of light

• Perceiving a cube in an image of eight black circles with white lines intersecting them

What is the main idea of the Gestalt principles?

• We perceive stimuli based on their absolute thresholds

• We tend to organize clusters of sensations into a whole or form

• We perceive stimuli based on their difference thresholds

• We adapt to constant stimuli

What is sensory adaptation?

• Increasing responses to a stimulus due to constant stimulation

• Awareness of faint stimuli

• Organizing clusters of sensations into a whole

• Decreasing responses to a stimulus due to constant stimulation

What is the difference threshold?

• The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time

• The minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time

• The constant amount by which two stimuli must differ to be perceived as different

• The maximum difference between two stimuli required for detection

What does Weber's Law state?

• To perceive a difference, two stimuli must differ by a constant amount

• The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time

• The minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time

• o perceive a difference, two stimuli must differ by a varying amount

What does the figure-ground relationship explain?

• How we detect differences between similar stimuli

• How we group different stimuli together

• How we detect faint stimuli

• How we distinguish a subject from its background

What does top-down processing rely on?

• Constant stimulation

• Sensory receptors

• The five senses

• Experiences and expectations

What category of senses does taste (gustation) belong to?

• Chemical senses

• Energy senses

• Body position senses

What is the role of the vestibular sense?

• It helps you taste

• It tells you where your specific body parts are positioned and oriented

• It tells you where your body is positioned in relation to space

• It helps you hear

What principle explains our ability to distinguish a subject from its background in an image?

• Sensory adaptation

• The figure-ground relationship

• Absolute threshold

• Weber's Law