Sensation & Perception

Sensation

Receiving information from the environment through sense organs

Transduction

The process by which physical energy is converted into sensory neutral impulses

Perception

The process by which people select, organize, and interpret sensations

Absolute Threshold

The smallest amount of stimulation that can be detected

JND or Difference Threshold

The smallest amount of change in a stimulus that can be detected

Signal - Detection theory

Theory that detecting a stimulus is jointly determined by the signal and the subject’s response criterion

False positive

You think something is there, but isn’t there

False negative

Miss something that is present

Weber’s law

Calculates the JND

Offers small proportions

Sensory Deprivation

Elimination or removal of the use of sensory information

Cocktail-Party phenomenon

Ability to focus one’s listening attention on a single talker

Form of selective attention

Short wave length

High frequency

Long wave length

Low frequency

Orders of how retina works

1. Rods and cones

2. Bipolar cells

3. Ganglion cells

Rods

See black and white

Cones

Sees color

Optomic Nerve

Pathway that carries visual information from the eyeball to the brain

Trichromatic theory

T. Young and H. von Helmholtz both proposed that the eye detects 3 primary colors: red, blue, and green

Other colors can be determined when those 3 colors are combined

Opponent-process theory

Theory explains after images and colors deficiency

Nearsightedness

A refractive error that makes images in the distance blurry

Foresightedness

A condition in which you see things at a distance clearly and up close is blurry

Blindsight

When an individual can sense something in their visual field when they are blind in that visual field

Audition

The sense of hearing

Orders of sound waves hitting

Eardrum —> hammer —> anvil —> stirrup —> oval windows

Corti

Turning vibrations into neutral impulses

Conduction hearing loss

Damage to ear drum or bones in the middle ear

Nerve Deafness (sensorineural) hearing loss

Damage to the structure of the inner ear

Frequency theory

All the hairs vibrate but at different speeds

Place or pitch theory

Different hairs vibrate in the cochlea when they different pitches

Some hairs vibrate when they hear high and other vibrate when they hear low pitches

Anosmia

Completely losing the ability to smell

Pheromones

Scents we give off (mostly common between animals around the time they start to mate)

Gate-control theory

The spinal cord contains a “gate” that blocks sensory signals so the brain when flooded by competing signals, the pain message will be received first

Phantom pain

When you get sensations from the missing limb (mostly common between amputees DOES NOT APPEAR IF YOU WERE BORN WITHOUT A LIMB)

Biological component

When someone has a longer pain tolerance (pain tolerance is different)

Psychological control

When you get the attention to feel the pain

Social-culture influences

Presence of others

Kinesthetic system

Structures disturbed throughout body that sense position and movement of body parts

Vestibular system

The inner ear and brain structure that afford a sense of equilibrium

Balance (body)

Synesthesia

When someone experiences sensory information in more that 1 way (modality)