Chapter 1 Summary

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1.   Sensation and perception are central to, and often , almost all aspects of human behavior and thought. There are many practical applications of our increased understanding of sensation and perception. Check answers for this question

2.   Gustav Fechner invented several clever methods for measuring the relationship between physical changes in the world and consequent ----- biological psychological changes in observers. These methods remain in use today. Using Fechner’s methods, researchers can measure the smallest levels of stimulus that can be detected ( ----- absolute relative threshold) and the smallest differences that can be detected (difference thresholds, or just noticeable differences).
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3.   A more recent development for understanding performance— theory—permits us to simulate changes in the perceiver (e.g., internal noise and biases) in order to understand perceptual performance better.
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4.   Studying ----- simple complex stimuli (such as pure tones) is useful because ----- simple complex stimuli can be decomposed into ----- simple complex components. In vision and audition, analysis is a mathematical tool that helps researchers break down complex images and sounds in ways that permit better understanding of how they are sensed and perceived.
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5.   We learn a great deal about perception by understanding the biological structures and processes involved. One early observation—the doctrine of specific nerve energies—expresses the fact that people are aware only of the activity of their nervous systems. For this reason, what matters is ----- how which nerves are stimulated, not ----- how they which nerves are stimulated. The central nervous system reflects specializations for the senses from cranial nerves to areas of the cerebral cortex involved in perception.
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6.   The essential activities of all neurons, including those involved in sensory processes, are chemical and electrochemical. Neurons communicate with each other through , molecules that cross the synapse from the ----- axon dendrite of one neuron to the ----- axon dendrite of the next. Nerve impulses are electrochemical; voltages change along the axon as electrically charged and potassium ions pass in and out of the membranes of nerve cells.
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7.   Recordings of individual neurons enable us to measure the lowest level of stimulus required for a neuron to fire ( ----- absolute relative threshold). Both the ----- amplitude rate and the timing pattern of neural firing provide additional information about how the brain encodes stimuli in the world.
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8.   Neuroimaging methods have revolutionized the study of sensation and perception by allowing us to study the brain in healthy, living human observers. Useful methods include (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), emission tomography (PET), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Each comes with its own combination of temporal and spatial properties, making one method suitable for researching some questions and other methods more suitable for other questions.
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