Unit 5: Sensation and Perception - AP Psychology Syllabus and Calendar
Essential Task 5-1:
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Essential Task 5-1: Discuss basic principles of sensation/bottom up processing with specific attention to sensory transduction, absolute threshold, difference threshold (Weber's Law), signal detection, and sensory adaptation.
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Essential Task 5-2:
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Essential Task 5-2:Describe the sensory process of vision including the specific nature of energy transduction (rods and cones and the trichromatic theory of color vision), relevant anatomical structures (cornea, pupil, iris, lens, retina, optic nerve, blind spot and fovea) and specialized pathways in the brain (opponent process theory of color vision and the occipital lobe).
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Essential Task 5-3:
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Essential Task 5-3: Describe the other sensory processes (e.g., hearing, touch, taste, smell, vestibular, kinesthesis,pain), including the specific nature of energy transduction (Frequency Theory, Place Theory ,Volley Principle, Gate Control Theory) relevant anatomical structures, and specialized pathways in the brain for each of the senses.
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Essential Task 5-4: |
Essential Task 5-4: Explain common sensory disorders (e.g., visual and hearing impairments).
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Essential Task 5-5:
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Essential Task 5-5: Describe general principles of perception/ top down processing (organizing and integrating sensation) that promote stable awareness of the external world with specific attention to the Gestalt principles of figure/ground, closure, proximity, connectedness, similarity and the mono and binocular cues for depth perception).
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Essential Task 5-6:
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Essential Task 5-6: Discuss how experience, context and culture can influence perceptual processes with specific attention to perceptual set, illusions, change blindness, and selective attention.
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Essential Task 5-7:
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Essential Task 5-7: Describe various states of consciousness and their impact on behavior.
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Essential Task 5-8:
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Essential Task 5-8: Discuss aspects of sleep and dreaming:
— stages, characteristics of the sleep cycle and circadian rhythms. — theories of sleep and dreaming (activation synthesis, information processing, cognitive theory, and psychodynamic) — symptoms and treatments of sleep disorders (sleep apnea and narcolepsy) |
Essential Task 5-9:
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Essential Task 5-9: Explain hypnotic phenomena (suggestibility, dissociation, actor-observer effect) and describe historic and contemporary uses of hypnosis (pain control, addiction and psychotherapy).
Cures ichthyosis
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Essential Task 5-10:
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Essential Task 5-10: Identify the major psychoactive drug categories (depressants, stimulants and hallucinogens) and classify specific drugs, including their psychological and physiological effects.
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Essential Task 5-11:
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Essential Task 5-11: Discuss drug dependence, addiction, tolerance, and withdrawal.
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