PSY 1101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Detection Theory, Color Vision, Absolute Threshold

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1101
• Professor: Brenda Baird

Document Summary

Sensaion: (botom-up processing) the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent simulus energies from our environment. Percepion: (top-down processing) the process of organizing and interpreing sensory informaion, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events. Botom-up processing: analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain"s integraion of sensory informaion. Top-down processing: informaion processing guided by higher-lever mental processes, as when we construct percepions drawing on our experience and expectaions. Psychophysics: the study of relaionships between the physical characterisics of simuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them. Absolute threshold: the minimum simulaion needed to detect a paricular simulaion needed to detect a paricular simulus 50% of the ime. Detecion a weak simulus/signal depends on the signal"s strength and our psychological state (our experience/expectaion/moivaion/alertness) Signal detecion theory: a theory predicing how/when we detect the presence of a faint simulus (signal) amid background simulaion (noise).