Learning Objectives

These are the concepts and the learning objectives for Chapter 4. Read them carefully as part of your preliminary survey of the chapter.

Sensing the World Around Us

1. Define sensation, perception, stimulus, and psychophysics. (pp. 90-91)

2. Distinguish between absolute threshold, just noticeable difference, and sensory adaptation. (pp. 91-92)

Vision: Shedding Light on the Eye

3. Describe the structural components of the eye, the initial processing of light, and adaptation to different light levels. (pp. 94-96)

4. Discuss how an image is conveyed from the eye to the brain, and the role of feature detection in processing visual information. (pp. 96-98)

5. Explain the trichromatic and opponent-process theories and how they account for color vision. (pp. 99-100)

Hearing and the Other Senses

6. Describe the structural parts of the ear, the role of each part in detecting sound, and the basic physical properties of sound. (pp. 102-103)

7. Distinguish between the place theory and the frequency theory of hearing. (pp. 105-107)

8. Explain how semicircular canals detect motion and produce the sense of balance. (p. 107)

9. Describe the sensory mechanisms of smell and taste. (pp. 107-108)

10. Describe the skin senses of touch, pressure, and temperature, and explain the gate-control theory of pain. (pp. 108-110)

Perceptual Organization: Constructing Our View of the World

11. Distinguish perception from sensation. (p. 113)

12. Distinguish between the gestalt approach and feature analysis. (pp. 113-116)

13. Distinguish between top-down and bottom-up processing. (pp. 116-117)

14. Explain perceptual constancy, depth perception, and motion perception. (pp. 118-120)

15. Describe and illustrate the major perceptual illusions, especially the Müller-Lyer and the Poggendorf illusions. (pp. 120-121)

16. Discuss the evidence for the existence of subliminal perception and extrasensory perception. (pp. 123-124)