PSYC 100 Final: PSYCH 100 Final

• School: University of Illinois
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Cottrell Jonathan

Document Summary

Identify the basic principles that apply to all the senses: Transduction: process of converting incoming energy into neural activity. Receptors: specialized cells that detect certain forms of energy/respond to incoming energy by firing an action potential. Threshold: membrane potential necessary to trigger an action potential (electrical impulse traveling down axon to trigger release of neurotransmitters) Absolute : lowest level of stimulus needed for nervous system to detect a change. Primary sensory cortex: regions of cerebral cortex that initially process info from senses. Association cortex: regions of cerebral cortex integrating simpler functions to perform more complex functions (damage to area makes recognizing faces more difficult) Top-down: processing based on past experience/background knowledge (ie. perceptual sets when our expectations influence perceptions) Bottom-up: sensory information processing to which a whole is constructed from points (occurs when we experience new objects) Parallel processing: ability to receive information across many different neural pathways at once.