FRIDAY 10/23 Quiz 22: Sensation Intro -smell, taste, sensory interaction

Sensation

Occurs when one of our senses (sight, smell, hearing, touch, or taste) is activated by something in our environment

THIS is first, then TRANSDUCTION, then PERCEPTION

Transduction

For sensation: the transforming of stimulus energies into neural impulses our brains can interpret, which then becomes a perception

Examples:

· Air vibrations are transformed in the ear which then becomes a sound

· Light waves are transformed by the retina in the eye which then becomes a sight

SENSATION is first, then THIS, then PERCEPTION

Perception

The brain's interpretation of sensory messages

The process of understanding and interpreting sensations

SENSATION is first, then TRANSDUCTION, then THIS

Energy Senses

The senses of vision, hearing, and touch

The senses gather energy in the form of light, sound waves, and pressure, respectively

Chemical Senses

The senses of taste and smell

These senses work by gathering chemicals

Sensory Interaction

Senses contribute to the experience of another sense

Example: smell is essential to taste, but vision can also affect taste.

Synesthesia

In rare cases, people have combined senses.

Examples:

· Some with this see music as colors

· Some with this have different words produce different tastes

· Some see letters and numbers each having a different color

Only in 4% of the overall population, but eight times more likely in artists, musicians, poets, and novelists. Examples include Billie Eilish, Lorde, and Frank Ocean.

VS Ramachandran researches this

Sensory Adaptation

Decreasing responsiveness to stimuli due to constant stimulation

Examples:

(1) We eventually stop perceiving a persistent scent in a room

(2) We eventually stop feeling the cold swimming pool as cold

People who have THIS cannot perceive it unless they re-adjust

Sensory habituation

Our perception of sensation is partially determined by how used to them we are

Examples:

(1) no longer hearing traffic from the nearby freeway after having lived in a place for years

(2) not feeling your shoes and socks on your feet even though they are touching your feet

People who have THIS can still perceive it if directed to focus attention on it

Olfaction

The sense of smell

Structures in the nose and brain process and transduce olfactory stimuli

Smell is the only sense not processed first in the thalamus

Pheromones produce chemical messages for the olfactory system that come from a species body

Pheromones

THESE produce chemical messages for smell

These are animal biochemical odorants that are emitted by other members of a same species that can affect an animal's behavior or physiology, and humans have these "body odors" as well for the sense of smell

Gustation

The sense of taste

Types of taste:

>Sweet

>Sour

>Salty

>Bitter

>Umami

>Oleogustus

The number of taste receptors on the tongue is related to how sensitive people are to tastes classifying them as supertasters, medium tasters, or non tasters

Supertasters

25% of people have more taste receptors on their taste buds, giving them more sensitivity to taste, and making them supertasters

Supertasters are picky eaters because food taste more bitter

Most are women, because of evolution to protect babies from poisonous food - which are more likely BITTER tastes