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Study Guide for Text

Note: This is NOT a comprehensive list of textbook material that may be tested on the exam. However, working through this material will be helpful in your preparation.

Chapter 1

Check your understanding: boxes on p. 8, p. 17.

Don’t focus on:

  • Sodium and potassium ion concentrations
  • Specific details about neurons (see notes below)

Do focus on: 

  • Names of the major parts of a neuron and what they do
  • Firing rate
  • Psychophysics
    • Absolute threshold
    • Method of adjustment
    • Method of constant stimuli
    • Staircase method
    • Magnitude estimation
    • Difference threshold – just noticeable difference
    • Weber’s law and Fechner’s law
    • Steven’s law

 

Appendix

 Check Your Understanding: Box on p. 546  excluding A.4

  • Signal detection theory:
    • Hit, miss, false alarm, correct rejection
    • Sensitivity and Bias (style, decision making)
    • receiver operating characteristic (ROC)
    • chance line on ROC

Chapter 2

Check your understanding: p. 43 (21., 2.2, and 2.4), p. 49 (2.5-2.7), p.54 (2.9 and 2.10), p. 61 (2.11-2.15), p. 70 (2.16, 2.18-2.20)

Don’t focus on:

  • Details of eye anatomy beyond those discussed in class
  • Cell layers of the retina beyond those discussed in class
  • Disorders of vision, except presbyopia which was covered in class

Do focus on:

  • Light
    • As a wave
    • As a particle
      • Direct vs. reflected light
    • Optic array
  • The Human Eye
    • Field of View
    • Lens
      • Accommodation
    • Retina
      • Retinal image
  • Sensory (receptor) neurons
    • Relationship between stimulus intensity and neural signal
  • Photoreceptors: rods and cones
    • Retina
      • Anatomy of the retina
        • RGCs at the front, photoreceptors at the back
      • Blind spot
    • Kinds of photoreceptors
    • Photopigments
      • Photoisomerization
    • Differences between rods and cones
      • Shape
      • Number
      • Spatial distribution
      • Adaption to darkness
      • Spectral sensitivity
      • Sensitivity to light
      • Spatial acuity
  • Retinal Ganglion Cells (RGCs)
    • Convergence
    • Receptive fields
      • Center-surround receptive fields
        • On-center
        • Off-center
        • Responses to bright and dim spots
        • Lateral inhibition
    • Visual illusions presented in class that may be explained by center-surround receptive fields
    • Contrary illusion: White’s illusion
  • Disorders of Vision: Presbyopia

Chapter 3

Check your understanding: p. 86 (3.1, 3.3 – except koniocellular layers), p. 92 (3.5-3.9), p. 97 (3.10-3.13), p. 106 (3.14)

Don’t focus on:

  • Complex cells
  • Koniocellular layers
  • Ataxia
  • Area V4
  • Middle temporal area/motion
  • Intraparietal Sulcus
  • Brain implants for the blind

Do focus on:

  • Functional specialization
  • Retinotopic mapping
  • Optic chiasm
  • Lateral geniculate nucleus (names and functions of layers, but not the numbers of the layers corresponding to each type)
  • Magnocellular layers –> parasol retinal ganglion cells
  • Parvocellular layers –> midget
  • Top down feedback
  • Superior colliculus (role)
  • V1
  • Simple cells
    • Preferred orientation
    • Ambiguity of information from a single cell
    • Population code
  • Ocular dominance columns (not in detail)
  • Orientation columns (not in detail)
  • Retinotopic maps
  • Cortical magnification
    • Definition
    • Why it occurs
    • Trade-off between sensitivity and acuity
  • Functional areas and pathways
  • Ventral pathway: “what”
  • Dorsal pathway: “where”
  • Functional specialization and modularity
    • Inferotemporal cortex
    • Lateral occipital cortex
    • Fusiform face area

Pattern Recognition & Neural Nets

Check your understanding:

  •  Current deep nets do not detect illusory contours, what does that say about limits to their capabilities?
  •  Current deep nets are very dependent on local texture in an image, how does that limit their ability to recognize objects?

Key Terms

  • Cost (loss) function
  • Gradient descent
  • Cross validation

Chapter 4

Check your understanding: 4.1, 4.2, 4.5

Key terms:

  • Border ownership (p. 118)
  • Edge Extraction (p. 119)
  • Figure (p. 118)
  • Ground (p. 118)
  • Illusory contours (p. 130)
  • Image clutter (p. 115)
  • Object variety (p. 115)
  • Perceptual grouping (p. 118)
  • Perceptual interpolation (p. 118)
  • Variable views (p. 116)

Chapter 9

Check your understanding: 9.1, 9.3, 9.4, 9.6-9.8, 9.10-9.12

Key terms:

  • Attention (p. 292)
  • Attentional cuing (p. 299)
  • Biased competition theory (p. 309)
  • Binding problem (p. 308)
  • Binocular rivalry (p. 320)
  • Bottom-up attentional control (or stimulus-driven attentional control) (p. 312)
  • Change blindness (p. 298)
  • Conjunction search (p. 304)
  • Covert attention (p. 299)
  • Feature Integration Theory (FIT) (p. 308)
  • Feature search (p. 304)
  • Inattentional blindness (p. 294)
  • Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCCs) (p. 319)
  • Object-based attention (p. 306)
  • Overt attention (p. 299)
  • Perceptual bistability (p. 319)
  • Selective attention (p. 292)
  • Stimulus-driven attentional control (see bottom-up attentional control) (p. 312)
  • Task switching (p. 322)
  • Top-down attentional control (or voluntary attentional control) (p. 312)
  • Visual search (p. 304)
  • Voluntary attentional control (see top-down attentional control) (p. 312)

Chapter 5

Check your understanding: 5.1-5.3, 5.5, 5.7-5.11, 5.12-5.16

Key terms: 

  • Achromatic light (or white light) (p. 157)
  • Additive color mixture (p. 160)
  • Chromatic adaptation (p. 176)
  • Color assimilation (p. 178)
  • Color constancy (p. 179)
  • Color contrast (p. 177)
  • Heterochromatic light (p. 157)
  • Hue (p. 159)
  • Hue cancellation (p. 171)
  • Lightness (p. 181)
  • Lightness constancy (p. 181)
  • Metamers (p. 163)
  • Monochromatic light (p. 157)
  • Photopigment bleaching (p. 176)
  • Principle of univariance (p. 165)
  • Saturation (p. 159)
  • Spectral Power Distribution (SPD) (p. 157)
  • Spectral reflectance (p. 158)
  • Spectra sensitivity function for rods and cones (p. 165)
  • Subtractive color mixture (p. 160)
  • Visible spectrum (p. 156)
  • White light, see achromatic light (p. 157)

 

Chapter 6

Check your understanding: 6.1-6.13

Key terms:

  • Accretion (p. 207)
  • Atmospheric perspective (p. 202)
  • Binocular disparity (p. 208)
  • Correspondence problem (p. 211)
  • Corresponding points (p. 208)
  • Crossed disparity (p. 209)
  • Deletion (p. 207)
  • Emmert’s law (size constancy) (p. 220)
  • Familiar size (p. 200)
  • Horopter (p. 208)
  • Interposition, see partial occlusion (p. 197)
  • Linear perspective (p. 201)
  • Monocular depth cues (p. 197)
  • Motion parallax (p. 205)
  • Non-corresponding points (p. 208)
  • Oculomotor depth cues (p. 196)
  • Optic flow (p. 205)
  • Partial occlusion (or interposition) (p. 197)
  • Random Dot Stereogram (RDS) (p. 214)
  • Relative height (p. 199)
  • Relative size (p. 200)
  • Shape constancy (p. 221)
  • Size constancy (p. 220)
  • Size-distance relation (p. 199)
  • Static monocular depth cues (p. 197)
  • Stereogram (p. 212)
  • Stereopsis (or stereoscopic depth perception) (p. 208)
  • Stereoscopic depth perception, see stereopsis (p. 208)
  • Texture gradient (p. 201)
  • Uncrossed disparity (p. 211)
  • Visual angle (p. 199)
  • Zero disparity (p. 211)

Chapter 7

Check your understanding: 7.1, 7.3-7.8

Key terms:

  • Aperture problem (p. 254)
  • Apparent motion (p. 234)
  • Corollary Discharge Signal (CDS) (p. 241)
  • Motion Aftereffect (MAE) (p. 247)
  • Point-light walker (p. 236)
  • Saccades, see saccadic eye movements (p. 239)
  • Saccadic eye movements (or saccades) (p. 239)
  • Saccadic suppression (p. 239)
  • Smooth pursuit eye movements (p. 239)

Chapter 10

Check your understanding: 10.1, 10.2, 10.4-10.8, 10.17, 10.24

Key terms:

  • Anvil, see incus (p. 341)
  • Audibility curve (p. 334)
  • Audiogram (p. 356)
  • Auditory canal (p. 340)
  • Auditory nerve (p. 346)
  • Basilar membrane (p. 343)
  • Cochlea (p. 342)
  • Cochlear implants (p. 360)
  • Cycle (p. 330)
  • Decibels (dB) (p. 332)
  • Dynamic range (p. 353)
  • Eardrum, see tympanic membrane (p. 341)
  • Equal loudness contour (p. 335)
  • Fourier analysis (p. 336)
  • Fourier spectrum (p. 337)
  • Frequency (p. 332)
  • Fundamental frequency (p. 337)
  • Hammer, see malleus (p. 341)
  • Harmonic (p. 337)
  • Hertz (Hz) (p. 332)
  • Incus (or anvil) (p. 341)
  • Inner hair cells (p. 345)
  • Loudness (p. 332)
  • Malleus (or hammer) (p. 341)
  • Motile response (p. 348)
  • Organ of Corti (p. 344)
  • Ossicles (p. 341)
  • Outer hair cells (p. 345)
  • Oval window (p. 341)
  • Periodic sound waves (p. 331)
  • Pinna (p. 340)
  • Pitch (p. 332)
  • Place code (p. 349)
  • Presbycusis (p. 357)
  • Pure tone (p. 332)
  • Round window (p. 343)
  • Sensorineural hearing impairments (p. 357)
  • Sound waves (p. 330)
  • Stapes (or stirrup) (p. 341)
  • Stirrup (see stapes) (p. 341)
  • Temporal code (p. 349)
  • Timbre (p. 338)
  • Tinnitus (p. 356)
  • Tympanic membrane (or eardrum) (p. 341)

Chapter 11

Check your understanding: 11.7-11.10, 11.14, 11.16

Key terms:

  • A1, see primary auditory cortex (p. 370)
  • Acoustic shadow (p. 375)
  • Auditory scene (p. 386)
  • Auditory scene analysis (p. 386)
  • Auditory stream (p. 386)
  • Auditory stream segregation (p. 386)
  • Azimuth (p. 374)
  • Cone of confusion (p. 377)
  • Doppler effect (p. 381)
  • Echolocation (p. 381)
  • Interaural Level Difference (ILD) (p. 376)
  • Interaural Time Difference (ITD) (p. 377)
  • Primary auditory cortex (or A1) (p. 370)
  • Tonotopic map (p. 370)