Sensation and Perception

sensation

physical processing of environmental stimuli by the sense organs

perception

psychological process of interpreting sensory information

psychophysics

the study of systematically relating physical stimuli to an observer’s perception

absolute threshold

the minimum level of sensory input that an organism can detect

just noticeable difference/difference threshold

the minimum amount stimuli must be changed for an organism to detect the difference at least 50% of the time

top down processing

when our perception is influenced by our expectations/prior knowledge

bottom up processing

when we perceive individual bits of sensory information and use them to construct a more complex message

signal detection theory

theory that a response to a stimulus depends on a person’s sensitivity and decision criteria (experience, expectation, motivation, etc.)

sensory adaptation

diminished sensitivity as a result of constant/recurring stimuli

selective attention

focusing on one particular stimuli while ignoring other distracting stimuli

inattentional blindness

failure to perceive objects that are not the focus of attention

change blindness

failure to detect changes to the visual details of a scene