AP Psychology - Sensation & Perception Vocabulary

Which theory suggests that our perception is influenced by our expectations and prior knowledge?

• Weber's law
• Subliminal processing
• Top-down processing
• Signal detection theory

What is the term for the process of detecting and encoding sensory information from the environment?

• Sensation
• Perception
• Transduction
• Psychophysics

What is the term for stimuli that are below our absolute threshold and therefore we are unable to consciously perceive them?

• Ultraliminal
• Infraliminal
• Subliminal
• Supraliminal

What is the phenomenon in which we fail to notice changes in a visual stimulus because our attention is focused elsewhere?

• Transduction
• Inattentional blindness
• Selective attention
• Change blindness

What is the study of the relationship between physical stimuli and our psychological experiences of them?

• Sensation
• Psychophysics
• Perception
• Transduction

Which one is an illusion of movement that arises when stationary objects are placed side by side and illuminated rapidly one after another?

• perceptual constancy

• visual cliff

• phi phenomenon

• depth perception

What is the process by which our sensory receptors become less responsive to a constant stimulus?

• Sensory adaptation
• Perceptual set
• Weber's effect
• Priming

What are specialized cells that detect and respond to specific types of sensory information?

• Muscles
• Sensory receptors
• Neurons
• Glands

What is the minimum difference between two stimuli that is necessary for us to detect a change in them 50% of the time?

• Priming threshold
• Absolute threshold
• Signal detection threshold
• Difference threshold

What is the minimum amount of a stimulus that is necessary for us to detect it 50% of the time?

• Absolute threshold
• Signal detection threshold
• Difference threshold
• Priming threshold