sensation, attention, and perception

What is sensation?

The process of when information in the physical world is processed by sensory organs

What are examples of sensation?

• vision- audition/hearing

• chemical senses (smell, taste)

• somesthetic senses (skin, vestibular: where you are, upside down etc, kinesthetic)

What is perception?

When sensory info is interpreted in the brain

What do transducters (receptors) do?

sense organs as energy translators

Whats the biggest challenge during sensation?

sensory organs can transduce the "avalanche of sensations" avaliable in the environment, but the brain cannot process all this information

What do we pay attention to?

Information that:

• is physically salient (bright, loud, sharp) mainly to keep up safe

• is appealing or interesting

• has meaning or importance (eg. cocktail party effect)

• allows us to meet goals

What is the challenge with respect to attention?

Our attention is limited, if you try to engage in many tasks simulataneously, your performace will be comprimised

How is attention influenced by goals?

• given your goal, where was your attention directed?

• people will pay attention to things that help them meet their goal

What are the two types of blindness?

Inattentional and Change Blindness

How is information from the senses combined during perception?

-brain doesn't deal with information coming from one sense at a time; it combines information from all senses (multimodal integration)
- vision and hearing are integrated in speech perception

What is multimodal integration?

Multi meaning many, modal meaning our senses are referred to as modalities

• Brain doesn't deal with info coming from one sense at a time

• Combines info from all senses

What are some everyday examples in which multimodal integration plays a role?

• eating and drinking

• playing an instrument

• playing a sport

• speech

What happens during the McGurk Illusion?

• What we see overrides what we hear

• when the information from the auditory and visual channels don't match, visual information trumps auditory

What happens during the Counting Flashes Illusion?

The auditory information trumps the visual information

Name and describe two conditions that illustrate this type of human diversity

Atypical Multimodal Integration

• synestheia: seeing numbers as specific colours

• Autism

Describe one way that transducers contribute to similarities in perception.

Human transducers work in the same way for most people

Describe how experience contributes to similarities in perception

• As babies we were all exposed to the same sensations and perceptions in learning what things look like and what they are

• We use similar "perceptual rules" to interpret stimuli

Name two examples of experience-based perceptual 'rules of thumb' that contribute to similarities in perception

• Shape constancy: we understand how shapes change (eg. After being blocked of view)

• Brightness constancy: years of experience being exposed to light and shadow

• Our brain corrects lights and shadows to fit what we don't know about it

What are five ways transducers contribute to differences in perception?

• number/type of sensory receptors

• physical location

• genetics

• age-related change

• exposure to environments and experiments (eg. Abuse, surgery, loud noise) that can damage transducers

Describe how experience can contribute to differencs in perception (ex. #thedress)

If you are more exposed to natural light compared to artificial light, our brains correct the colour based on those experiences

Explain how language can contribute to differences in perception

• When language has more variability on how they describe colour, it could affect the way people see colours

• experience with language as a result of culture, can change perception on colour

Explain how geographic location can contribute to differences in perception

• people who live in certain parts of the world have lighter or darker eyes which could cause LB

• People who experience LB have a harder time getting blue or shorter wave lights ^ Can compromise perceptual experience

What are the two main processes that describe perception?

Top Down and Bottom Up processes

Explain Top-Down processes

• driven by the elephant (system 1)

• Not a lot of conscious decision making

• Effortless

• More experience

• Processes emotion (visual), uses context