AP PSYCHOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The light is then focused by the eye’s lens and it strikes the retina, projecting an image. The objects in the world that are projecting the image we refer to as the distal stimulus. The light striking the retina and creating the 2D image is called the proximal stimulus.

Detailed explanation-2: -The proximal stimulus is generally defined as the pattern of energy impinging on the observer’s sensory receptors. This energy is associated with a distal stimulus. The observer depends most directly on proximal stimuli, not distal stimuli, in perceiving his world.

Detailed explanation-3: -In reading, for example, the distal stimulus is the printed page of a book, whereas the proximal stimulus is the light energy reflected by the page that stimulates the photoreceptors of the retina.

Detailed explanation-4: -The image is a smaller, inverted, and reversed picture of the object. Keep in mind that the image projected onto the retina is, in fact, projected onto a flattened sheet of receptor cells that line the inner surface of the eye.

Detailed explanation-5: -distal stimuli are objects and events out in the world about you. proximal stimuli are the patterns of stimuli from these objects and events that actually reach your senses (eyes, ears, etc.)