Chapter 5 (from psych study guide)

Sensation

The process of detecting stimuli from the environment through your senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch) and sending that information to your brain.

Perception

refers to the way sensory information is organized, interpreted, and consciously experienced.

5 senses

1. vision

2. hearing (audition)

3. smell (olfaction)

4. taste (gustation)

5. touch

Other senses

1. balance (vestibular)

2. Body Position

3. Pain (nociception)

4. Temperature (thermoception)Su

Absolute Threshold

minimum amount of stimulus energy that must be present for the stimulus to be detected 50% of the time.

ex: the smallest amount of smell you can detect

Just Noticeable Difference

The smallest difference between two stimuli that you can detect 50% of the time.

ex: our music is at 50% volume. Someone raises it to 55%, and you notice it's louder

Subliminal Messages

Message or stimulus that is below your absolute threshold for conscious awareness

ex: Imagine a movie quickly flashes a word on the screen for such a short time that you don't consciously see it.

Top Down Processing

Your brain uses past experiences, knowledge, and expectations to understand what you're experiencing.

Bottom Up Processing

Your brain starts with sensory information and builds up to understanding what you're experiencing.

Sensory Adaptation

You get in your car and the music sounds really loud. After listening for a while, you barely notice the loudness anymore.

Inattentional Blindness

Failure to notice something that is completely visible because the person was actively attending to something else and did not pay attention.

Signal Detection Theory

Ability to identify a stimulus when it is embedded in a distracting background.

ex:You're in a loud classroom and trying to hear your phone notification.

Electromagnetic spectrum

light travels as waves of electromagnetic energy, and our eyes detect some of these waves.

Colors

Violet, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red

Wavelengths

The distance between the peaks of a light wave.

Wavelength Order

Violet = shortest wavelength

Red = longest wavelength

what can we see?

visible light

what can’t we see?

ultraviolet or infrared

Trichromatic theory of color vision

We see color using 3 types of cones in our eyes.

The 3 colors

Red, Green, Blue

color blindness

difficulty distinguishing certain colors because of problems with cone cells.

Opponent process theory

we see colors in opposite pairs.

Red - Green

Blue - Yellow

White - Black

Depth perception

your ability to see the world in 3D and judge how far away things are.

Sounds

vibrations that travel through the air and are detected by your ears.

Frequency

how fast the sound waves vibrate → determines pitch

Amplitude

height/strength of the wave → determines loudness

Conductive hearing loss

Problem with the outer or middle ear getting sound to the inner ear.

Sensorineural hearing loss

Damage to the inner ear (cochlea) or auditory nerve.

Mixed hearing loss

combination of both conductive and sensorineural

Chemical Senses

senses that detect chemicals in the environment.

Taste - Gustation

detects chemicals in food

5 basics of taste

sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami

Smell — Olfaction

detects chemicals in the air

How smell works

Odor molecules → nose → olfactory receptors → brain

Humans vs Dogs

Dogs have a much more developed olfactory system, so they can detect and distinguish odors at concentrations that humans usually can't.

Pain

your body detects potential harm and your brain interprets those signals as pain.

Nociceptors

detect potential pain

Gestalt Principles

ways our brain organizes what we see into meaningful patterns and wholes.

Figure Ground Relationship

Your brain separates what you are focusing on (the figure) from the background (the ground).

Proximity

Things that are close together are seen as belonging together.

Similarity

Things that look alike are grouped together.

Continuity

We tend to see lines or patterns as smooth and continuous rather than broken.

Closure

Our brain fills in missing pieces to see a complete object.