PSY 200 - Module 4 - Sensation & Perception

congenital insensitivity to pain (congenital analgesia)

genetic disorder causing inability to feel pain

inflammatory pain

signal that tissue damage has occurred

neuropathic pain

pain caused by nerve damage in the peripheral or central nervous system

nociception

sensory signal indicating potential harm

Meissner’s corpuscle

touch receptor that senses light pressure and low-frequency vibrations

Merkel’s disk

touch receptor that senses light touch

Pacinian corpuscle

touch receptor that senses transient pressure and high-frequency vibrations

Ruffini corpuscle

touch receptor that senses stretch

vestibular sense

helps maintain balance and spatial orientation

proprioception

awareness of body position relative to other body parts

kinesthesia

awareness of body movement using muscles and joints; important for muscle memory

gestalt psychology

the whole is different from the sum of its parts

figure-ground relationship

distinguish main object from background

proximity

things close together are grouped

similarity

things that look alike are grouped

good continuation (continuity)

we perceive smooth, continuous lines instead of jagged ones

closure

perceive incomplete shapes as whole objects

pattern perception

ability to recognize different shapes and figures

perceptual hypothesis

educated guess used to interpret sensory information

multimodal

involves multiple senses at the same time

multimodal perception

how stimuli from different senses combine to form one perception

multimodal phenomena

how simultaneous input from multiple senses affects perception

crossmodal phenomena

how one sense influences perception in another sense

sensory modalities

types of senses (vision, hearing, etc.)

unimodal

only one sense

integrated

combined information from multiple senses

audiovisual speech

seeing and hearing someone speak improves understanding, especially in noisy environments

McGurk effect

conflicting visual and auditory speech creates an illusion (e.g., “gaga” + “baba” → hear “dada”)

rubber hand illusion

seeing a fake hand stroked in sync with your hidden hand makes it feel like your own

ventriloquism effect

visual info (puppet mouth) can trick perception of sound location

double-flash illusion

one flash + two beeps → perceive two flashes

crossmodal speech

seeing a person speak helps recognize their voice later and vice versa

vestibular organs

utricle, saccule, and semicircular canals in the inner ear

hair cells

respond to head movement and gravity, send signals to the brain via the vestibular nerve