Chapter 5: Sensation and Perception

Vision

  • jake is nearsighted and his cousin janelle is farsigted. their visual problems are caused by the fact that images are not properly focused on the retina

  • the perception of different colors, such as red, green, or blue, is caused by different wavelengths of light.

Sound

  • our perception of sound is directed related to the physical properties of sound waves

  • Decibels are used to measure the loudness of sound.

Smell

  • Smell and taste receptors respond to stimuli that are chemical.

  • The stimuli that produce the sensation of an odor are molecules in the air.

Taste

  • The sensation of taste results from the activation of receptor cells by chemical substances dissolved in saliva.

  • The flavor of a food is due to the combination of aroma, taste, texture, and temperature.

Skin

  • The skin is the largest and heaviest sense organ.

Pain

  • The body areas MOST sensitive to pain are the back of your knee, your neck, and the crook or bend of your elbows.

  • The body areas LEAST sensitive to pain are the tip of your nose, soles of your feet, and balls of your thumbs.

  • Anxiety and fear have been shown to increase the experience of pain by signaling the spinal “gates” to open.

  • In the spinal cord, endorphins affect the pain response by inhibiting the release of substance P.

Paranormal etc.

  • The scientific study of paranormal phenomena and ESP is called parapsychology

  • Telepathy is direct communication between the minds of two individuals. For example, twin girls who say that they can communicate with each other by using only their minds.

  • Most, psychologists doubt that extrasensory perception exists because experiments fail to replicate data to support their claims.

Perception

  • The group of psychologists who investigated the basic rules of perception in the early 1900s were called Gestalt psychologists.

  • The ability to perceive the three dimensions of an object, along with its distance from you, is called depth perception

  • Distance cues that require the use of only one eye are called monocular cues.

  • Distance cues that involve both eyes are called binocular cues.

  • In front of your geography classroom is a large globe of the world. no matter what angle you view the globe from, you still perceive it as a round globe. This is an example of shape constancy.

Pain Control

  • There are different types of pain control one is distraction. Such as a child getting a shot, is instructed to look at the parent’s face and count backward from 10.

  • Another types of pain control is Counter-irritation. For example: vigorously rubbing an injury to reduce the pain.