Psych 49: Midterm 1 University of California, Riverside PSYCH 49 - All Answers are Correct

Preface ● implicit perceptual abilities: our sensory systems can take in information without our awareness ● neural plasticity: we all have brain regions and cells that can change their function depending on our experiences ● mirror systems: automatic mimic aspects of each other’s behaviors such as facial expressions and speech inflections ● ecological approach: animals perceive and act in their natural environments ○ argues that once humans are observed in a context of sufficiently rich, natural sensory information - and as soon as they are asked to perform tasks that have behavioral relevance - previously unobserved perceptual skills merge ○ skills include: ■ your ability to hear the shape of both sound-making and sound-reflecting objects ■ to feel the size and shape of an object simply by shaking a small piece of it back and forth ■ to visually recognize people simply based on the way they move Hearing Chapter 1: The Sounds of Silence ● Intro: Daniel Kish ○ blind individual who uses echolocation to do normal human activities ○ diagnosed with retinoblastoma in both eyes ● You Hear Silent Objects: ○ “facial vision” theory: the blind can sense subtle changes in air pressure on their faces (and other exposed skin) that result from the presence of objects ○ Karl Dallenbach: ■ subjects: 2 blind and 2 sighted individuals ■ experiment: walk blindfolded towards a board and stop before making contact → thought they achieved through facial vision → false; hard-soled shoes made sounds ■ blind people can echolocate like bats ■ can use echolocate to determine object’s horizontal position, relative distance, and size → can identify general shape and material composition ■ sighted individuals can accurately echolocate after 10 minutes of practice ○ echolocation: locating objects by reflected sounds (ex: clicking) ■ the farther the object, the longer the delay (time delay) ■ the farther the object, the quieter the returning sound (intensity/loudness) ■ ripple noise pitch: interference between emitted and reflected sound → useful at distances less than 2 meters away ○ sound wave interference: sound reflected from hand colliding with the sound leaving mouth → changes with difference ○ passive echolocation: sounds emitted by a source other than yourself (ex: navigate hallways while on your phone) ● You Hear Space ○ Jay Patterson: sound mixer ■ Your brain is constantly perceiving spaces based on reflected sound → always echolocating ■ ambient sound shift: switching of the recorded reflected sound ○ Sandy Berman: sound designer ■ reflected sound makes a scene’s event seem to occur in a real space → viewers can also “inhabit” ○ Yasuhisa Toyota: architectural acoustician → vineyard design ■ evaluate the auditory quality of a space alon