6 - Perception Flashcards
What is perception and psychology?
All experiences are a lie
Stimulation of parts of the brain dealing with perception
Understanding about the world must go through the process of perception
Convert outside physics into useful information with psychology
Studying how we get information about our environment
What is psychophysics?
Scientific study of the subjective experience of perception
Relationship between physical stimuli and psychology
What are our 5 main senses?
Sight (visual Hearing (auditory Smell (olfactory Taste (taste Touch (tactile/haptic)
What are our other senses?
Balance (equilibrioception; vestibular system, inner ear) Body awareness (proprioception, joints and muscles; arrangement of the body) Temperature (thermoception, skin/internal)
What is the difference between sensation and perception?
Sensation: Detection of physical energy by sense organs; transduction
Perception: Brain’s interpretation of sensory input; transmission and interpretation
Is this a useful distinction? Physical vs processing
Whole sequence of events as the process of perception/perceiving
What is the integration of sensory?
Senses can feed into each other
Brain can use information from 2 or more senses
Eating/drinking: Taste and smell
- Rubber hand experiment
Visual: See rubber hand but not real hand
Proprioception: Correctly orientated
Touch: Paintbrushes stroking both hands at the same
What is somatosensation?
Touch
Multiple layers of skin cells with receptors
Some known, some unknown
Pressure, temperature, “pain”
Sensors, action potential, brain
Being touched, hot cup of coffee, ice block
Pain: Sensors are being intensely activated, not separate “pain” sensors
What is the somatosensory cortex?
Touch -> Thalamus -> Somatosensory cortex
Thalamus: Small amount of processing
Different parts of the brain are activated
What is gustation?
Taste
Taste receptors in clumps, taste buds on the projections of the tongue, propilae
Soft (back) palette (roof of the mouth)
Chemicals from the food dissolve into saliva, taste buds respond
Chemical specific response
Five types of human taste receptors
Salt Sweet Sour Bitter Umami (savoury)
Mice have receptors that respond to fat and calcium
Ratio of activation indicates perception of taste
Processed foods increasing salt and sugar to cover bitterness of preservatives
Tongue maps of where receptors are located
Tongue maps is misinformation
What is olfaction?
Smell
Flavour: Simultaneous activation of taste and smell; sensory integration
Chemical receptors, olfactory epithelium, in the nasal cavity
Chemicals are floating around in the air, dissolves in mucus
Contact with receptors activate signals to brain
What is equilibrioception?
Balance
Vestibular system, the inner ear not associated with
Angular (rotational) acceleration in our head in all three directions
- Semicircular canals at right angles to each other, detecting
Partly full of a thick fluid
Receptor cells: hair cells projecting into semicircular canal, detecting a fluid
- Saccule, blob structures, detecting acceleration/deceleration
Partly full of a thick fluid
Receptor cells: hair cells projecting into semicircular canal, detecting a fluid
If you are still, the fluid is pulled down by gravity
If you begin accelerating/decelerating, due to inertia, the fluid moves in different directions
What is the body sense?
Proprioception
What our body is doing
Removal of the parts of the brain associated with touch and vision, can still know what our body feels
Can detect flexing or extending in the muscles and joints
Sensory integration
Leaning back too far, proprioception and equilibrioception
What is audition?
Hearing
Tuning fork vibration. Compression of air, high pressure. Expansion of air, low pressure.
Air pressure over space/time
Frequency: Times in a second pressure switches. Hertz
Pitch: High or low pressure
Amplitude (loudness): Change in pressure from neutral to high/low
What is the auditory localisation?
Two ears, different times to receive information
- Interaural time differences
- Interaural intensity differences
- Would be the same if anything directly in front/behind/above/below
Head is always moving a little bit, will force a front/back difference
Pinnae are different, bouncing around differently
How does conductiveness deafness occur?
Nothing wrong with the brain, some issues with the equipment in the ear
Transmission of sound wave cannot be properly transmitted to the basilar membrane
E.g. Age, trauma, excessive exposure
Can vibrate the skull or jaw for hearing