Lecture 6: Sensory Systems Flashcards
Sensation was awareness of the states of the sensory nerves not the outer world itself
Muller’s Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies
Explain: When a given nerve type was excited, the same type of experience is produced no matter what the stimulus
Mueller’s doctrine of specific nerve energies; a mechanical or electrical impulse of the eye both produce visual sensations
Explain: Same physical stimulus applied to different sense organs give rise to different sensations
Mueller’s doctrine of specific nerve energies; Blow to the eye and blow to the ear produce visual and auditory sensations
Sensory system have a _____ range of responsiveness among species and lifespans; explain this
Restricted; The difference in sound frequency (Hz) that can be heard by humans and cats
The transformation of energy into an action potential
Sensory Transduction
Responsible for detecting specific types of energy
Receptor cells
Responsible for converting the sensory energy into electrical energy in the form of action potentials
Transducers
The _____ of the receptor determines the type of energy to which it responds
Structure
The impact of energy on the receptor that causes action potentials to occur in the sensory neuron which codes the occurrence of the sensory stimulus
Generator Potential
Lies in the skin as is responsible for our sense of touch, resembles a tiny onion consisting of a nerve fiber surrounded by layers of fibroblast cells
Pacinian Corpuscle
What three questions does the brain need to answer for any sensory input?
- What is it?
- Where is it?
- How big is it?
We now know that all senses use the same type of energy; __________
Action Potentials
The brain recognizes the different forms of sensory perception as separate and distinct because ___________
Each perception form sends its AP along separate nerve tracts
What do we use to determine the location of a stimulus when precise neurons are firing in the brain?
Labeled Lines
Refers to the region of space in a neuron where stimulus presentation causes the neuron to alter its firing rate
Receptive Field
To determine the receptive field of a neuron investigators record ________ to a variety of _________ to see what makes the activity of the cell change from its resting rate
electrical responses; stimuli
Allow the relative timing between the arrival of the stimulus or its relative intensity, EX: two nostrils or two ears
Bilateral receptor system
The firing rate of the neuron is proportional to the intensity of the _______
Stimulus
Receptors that show a low or non-existent decline in firing rate as the stimulation is maintained (little adaptation)
Tonic
Receptors that show a rapid decrease in firing rate when stimulation is adapted ( a lot of adaptation)
Phasic
A brief delay in our sensory experience can make us very insensitive to change
Change Blindness
A perceptual phenomenon that demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception, when the auditory component of one sound is paired with the visual component of another sound, leading to the perception of a third sound
The McGurk Effect
Acts as a “filter” ensuring that we pay attention only to those things that are changing and have high survival value and not things that are constant and have low survival value
Adaptation
