AP Psychology Review – Sensation, Perception & States of Consciousness

  1. Overview
  2. Sensation
  3. Perception
  4. Psychophysics
  5. Stimulus
  6. absolute threshold (see chart 4.1 for examples)
  7. Just noticeable difference
  8. Weber’s Law
  9. Fechner’s Law
  10. Signal-detection theory
  11. Hit
  12. Miss
  13. False alarm
  14. Correct rejection
  15. subliminal perception (Is this a valid phenomenon)
  16. sensory adaptation
  17. Sight
  18. Know all parts of the eye including rods and cones and the function of each.
  19. dark/light adaptation
  20. Describe the visual pathways to the brain
  21. trichromatic theory
  22. color blindness (dichromats)
  23. opponent process theory
  24. Visual perception
  25. Know how top-down processing is different from bottom-up processing. This process works in logical thought as well as all sensory perceptions.
  26. reversible figure
  27. phi phenomenon
  28. Gestalt Principles of perception
  29. figure and ground
  30. proximity
  31. similarity
  32. continuity
  33. simplicity
  34. closure
  35. Formulating Perceptual Hypotheses
  36. distal stimuli
  37. proximal stimuli

6.  Depth perception

  1. binocular depth clues
  2. retinal disparity
  3. convergence
  4. monocular depth cues
  5. motion parallax
  6. pictorial depth cues
  7. Linear perspective
  8. Texture gradient
  9. Interposition
  10. Relative size
  11. Height in plane
  12. Light and shadow
  13. perceptual constancy
  14. optical illusion

7.  Hearing

  1. Sound: Amplitude – Loudness: Wavelength or frequency – pitch: purity – Timbre
  2. Recognize the parts of the ear
  3. Place Theory
  4. Frequency Theory
  5. auditory localization

8.  Gustatory system

  1. Taste buds
  2. What are the 4 primary tastes?
  3. What things contribute to the perception of flavor?

9.  Olfactory system

  1. How is the connection between receptors and the brain different in the Olfactory system?

10.  Touch

  1. How do we feel pain?
  2. Gate-control theory

11.  kinesthetic system

12.  vestibular system