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Perception 4/e Cover Image
Perception, 4/e
Robert Sekuler, Brandeis University
Randolph Blake, Vanderbilt University

Introduction to Perception

Glossary


Anton's syndrome  A neurological condition in which a cortically blind person denies his or her blindness.
dualism  The philosophical view that mental events need not be associated with neural events. See materialism.
evoked potential (EP)  The electrical response in a collection of neurons that is provoked by a stimulus.
far senses (distance senses)  Senses, such as vision, that enable an organism to perceive objects or events some distance away. See near senses.
illusions  Perceptual errors.
lesion  Damage to a restricted region of the body, particularly some portion of the nervous system.
materialism  The philosophical view that ascribes all mental experiences to neural events. See dualism.
naive realism  The philosophical view that perception accurately portrays all objects and events in the world.
near senses  Senses, such as touch, that require close proximity between the perceiver and the object or event to be perceived. See far senses.
perception  The acquisition and processing of sensory information in order to see, hear, taste, smell, or feel objects in the world; also guides an organism's actions with respect to those objects. Perception may involve conscious awareness of objects and events; this awareness is termed a percept.
PET (positron-emission tomography) scan  scan An image of the brain, or other structure, that is created by means of positron emission tomography.
psychophysics  The branch of perception that is concerned with establishing quantitative relations between physical stimulation and perceptual events.
sensory transduction  The process occurring within sensory receptors by which physical energy (stimulus) is converted into neural signals.
solipsism  The belief that no one exists other than oneself.
specific nerve energies  The doctrine that the qualitative nature of a sensation depends on which particular nerve fibers are stimulated.
stimulus  The pattern of physical energy set up by an object or event in the environment.
subjective contours  Illusory contours or surfaces, especially like those devised by Kanizsa.
subjective idealism  The view that the physical world is entirely the product of the mind.