Neal Notes: Sensation and Perceprion

Sensation and Perception:

⁃ Sensation: input from the physical world to our sensory receptors, bottom up processing

⁃ Perception: how our brain interprets the stimulus, top down processing

Eyes:

⁃ light goes though the pupil

⁃ The iris is made up of many pigments

⁃ Constriction: muscles in the iris constrict the pupil making the hole open and close

⁃ Dilation: making the eyehole larger or smaller

Geniculostriate:

1. Retina

2. LGN (thalamus)

3. Occipital Lobe

4. Superachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) (retinohypothalamic tract)

⁃ Superior colliculus: directs where to look when you hear something, in the tectum

⁃ Pulvinar: tells us what we are afraid of, detection, fear related stimuli

Achormatopsia: Damage, Colorblindness

⁃ Unconscious Inferences: it’s a car, shoe, or a car, but it’s a blob

Aural Anatomy:

⁃ Outer ear, mechanical signals

⁃ Mid ear, amplifies sound, kids are more prone to ear infections

⁃ Inner ear, transduce the sound into electric signal and on to the thalamus and auditory cortex (temporal lobe). Cochlea, vibrate with the vibrations in the fluid and transmit signals into the brain as electrical impulses. Semicircular Ducts: tells you when you’re upside down, vestibular nerve to the vestibulocohlear nerve, to the cortex.

Brain Stem: auditory information from both ears are passed to the brain stem to tell where the sound is coming from