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The perceptual experience of one sense that is evoked by another sense (Ex: when musical notes evoke the visual sensation of color)


simple awareness due to the stimulation of a sense organ


The organization, identification, and interpretation of a sensation in order to form a mental representation.




methods that measure the strength of a stimulus and the observer's sensitivity to that stimulus... Approach developed by FECHNER (Ex of study: observer relates the measured stimulus to each observer's yes-or-no response.

absolute threshold

the minimal intensity needed to just barely detect a stimulus

Just noticeable difference

The minimal change in a stimulus that can just barely be detected

Weber's Law

The just noticeable difference of a stimulus is a constant proportion despite variations in intensity (Ex: JND for weights is about 2%)

Signal Detection Theory

holds that the response to a stimulus depends both on a person's sensitivity to the stimulus in the presence of noise and on a person's response criterion (Ex: "hit" "false alarm")

Sensory Adaptation

The observation that sensitivity to prolonged stimulation tends to decline over time as an organism adapts to current conditions


Hole in the colored part of the eye


Colored part of the eye; controls the size of the pupil and hence the amount of light that can enter the eye


light-sensitive tissue lining the back of the eyeball


the process by which the eye maintains a clear image on the retina


photoreceptors that detect color, operate under normal daylight conditions, and allow us to focus on fine detail


Photoreceptors that become active only under low-light conditions


An area of the retina where vision in the clearest and there are no rods at all

Blind Spot

A hole in the retina which contains neither rods nor cones and therefore has no mechanism to sense light

Receptive Field

the region of the sensory surface that, when stimulated, causes a change in the firing rate of that neuron (Ex: patch of adjacent photoreceptors)

Trichromatic Color Representation

The pattern of responding across the three types of cones provides a unique code for each color

Color-opponent System

pairs of visual neurons work in opposition; red-sensitive cells against green-sensitive and blue-sensitive again yellow-sensitive

Area V1

The part of the occipital lobe that contains the primary visual cortex

Visual-form Agnosia

The inability to recognize objects by sight

Modular View

Idea that specialized brain areas, or modules, detect and represent faces or houses or even body parts

Distributed representation

View that the pattern of activity across multiple brain regions is what identifies any viewed object

Perceptual Constancy

Even as aspects of sensory signals change, perception remains consistent


a mental representation that can be directly compared to a viewed shape in the retinal image

monocular depth clues

aspects of a scene that yield information about depth when viewed with only one eye

binocular disparity

the difference in the retinal images of the two eyes that provides information about depth

Motion Parallax

A depth cue based on the movement of the head overtime

Ames Room

Trapezoidal room; creates an optical illusion with one large and one small person

apparent motion

the perception of movement as a result of alternating signals appearing in rapid succession in different locations

sound waves

changes in air pressure unfolding over time

amplitude, complexity, frequency

Three physical dimensions of a sound wave (alphabetical order)


A listener's experience of sound quality or resonance


A fluid-filled tube that is the organ of auditory transduction

Basilar Membrane

A structure in the inner ear that undulates when vibrations from the ossicles reach the cochlear fluid

Hair Cells

Specialized auditory receptor neurons embedded in the basilar membrane

Area A1

A portion of the temporal lobe that contains the primary auditory cortex

Place code

The cochlea encodes different frequencies at different locations along the basilar membrane

Temporal Code

The cochlea registers low frequencies via the firing rate of action potentials entering the auditory nerve

Haptic Perception

The active exploration of the environment by touching and grasping objects with our hands

Referred Pain

Feeling of pain when sensory information from the internal and external areas converge on the same nerve cells in the spinal cord

Gate-control Theory

A theory of pain perception based on the idea that signals arriving from pain receptors in the body can be stopped or gated by interneurons in the spinal cord via feedback from two directions

Vestibular System

The three fluid-filled semicircular canals and adjacent organs located next to the cochlea in each inner ear

Olfactory Receptor Neurons

Receptor neurons that initiate the sense of smell

Flickr Creative Commons Images


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