Sensation and Perception

Sensation

process where our senses recieve and relay external stimuli to the brain for initial processing, physiological

Perception

the active process of organising and interpreting raw information, psychological

Absolute threshold

lowest level at which you can experience a sensation

3 processes of sensation

Reception, transduction, transmission

Reception

the activation of sensory receptors by a stimulus

Transduction

the conversion of a sensory signal to an electrochemical signal in the nervous system

Transmission

sending sensory information in the form of neural impulses to the appropriate area of the brain for processing

Process of perception

Selection, organisation, interpretation

Selection

feature detectors filter the stimuli by responding to certain features of stimulus, ignoring the rest

Salience

How much something attracts attention in a certain context. Selection is determined by degree of salience.

Factors affecting salience

Visual and aural stimulation, needs and interests, expectations

Organisation

Organising features of sensory stimuli in a meaningful manner

Gestalt principles

Similarity, proximity, figure ground

Interpretation

Giving meaning to sensory stimuli

Perceptual sets

a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another

Schemas

a concept or framework that organises and interprets information