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CHAPTER 4 STUDY GUIDE
Name: ________________________________
* Be sure to abide by the guidelines outlined on the Chapter 1 Study Guide.
Sensory Transduction: Explain the basic principles and related concepts associated with each of the following:
 Absolute threshold
 Just noticeable/difference threshold
 Signal detection theory
 Sensory adaptation
Sensory Processes: for each of the following describe the specific nature of energy transduction (turning
physical stimuli into a psychological perception), identify the relevant anatomical structures, and detail the
specialized brain pathways
 Vision (light amplitude/wavelength/purity, pupil/lens (accommodation)/retina/optic nerve (blind spot),
rods, cones, and fovea, visual pathway to the brain (see Huber/Wiesel below for feature detectors and
processing), trichromatic/opponent process theories, afterimages)
 Hearing (sound amplitude/frequency/purity), hertz/decibels, external/middle/inner ear, eardrum,
cochlea, basilar membrane/hair cells, pathway/destination, place/frequency theories)
 Taste/Gustatory system (physical stimuli, taste buds, pathway)
 Smell/Olfactory system (physical stimuli, olfactory cilia, pathway (what is unique?))
 Touch/pain (physical stimuli, pathway/destination (touch), pain receptors, pain subjectivity, gatecontrol theory
 Kinesthesis/vestibular (semicircular canals/cerebellum)
Sensory Disorders: describe the cause and symptoms of the following:
 Nearsightedness
 Farsightedness
 Visual agnosia
 Prosopagnosia
 Colorblindness
 Sensorineural/conduction hearing loss
Visual Perceptual Processes: understand the underlying principles for each of the following:
 Perceptual set
 Inattentional/change blindness
 Top-down/bottom-up processing
 Gestalt psychology and principles (phi phenomenon, figure/ground, proximity, closure, similarity,
continuity)
 Perceptual hypotheses and context
 Binocular depth cues
 Monocular (pictorial) depth cues (linear perspective/texture gradient/interposition/relative size/height
in plane/light and shadow, cultural differences)
 Perceptual (size, color, shape) constancy
 Visual illusions (Muller-Lyer, Ames rooms, cultural differences)
Important People: summarize the main ideas from the chapter associated with each of the following:
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Gustav Fechner
David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel (feature detectors)
Ernst Weber (Weber’s Law)