Our Sensational Senses Flashcards
Sensation is…
Detection of physical energy emitted or reflected by physical objects. We could not sense reality without it.
Perception is…
Mental operations that organize sensory impulses into meaningful patterns.
The organ of touch, pressure, heat, cold, and pain is…
Skin
The organ of hearing and balance is…
Ear
What contains receptors responsible for a sense of bodily movement?
Skeletal Muscles
Sense Receptors are…
Cells located in the sense organs. They convert physical energy from the environment or body into electrical energy, that is transmitted as nerve impulses to the brain.
How do we experience different kinds of sensations if all sensory neurons communicate the same way?
The Nervous System encodes the messages into 2 types:
- Anatomical
- Functional
Explain: Anatomical Coding (AKA Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies)
Different sensory modalities exist (hearing, smell, etc.) because signals received by the sense organs stimulate different nerve pathways, leading to different areas of the brain.
Explain: Functional Coding
Information about WHICH cells are firing, RATE of firing, and PATTERNING of firing. Explains variation within a sense.
Synesthesia is…
When the stimulation of one sense consistently evokes a sensation in another sense. (ex. the sound of a clarinet tastes like cherries)
Psychophysics is…
The study of how physical properties of stimuli are related to our psychological experience of them.
The smallest amount of energy that a person can detect reliably is…
Absolute Threshold
The smallest difference in stimulation that a person can detect reliably is…
Difference Threshold
Which stimuli have a more easily recognizable Difference Threshold?
-2 small pebbles
OR
-2 gigantic boulders
2 small pebbles, A and B. Because the larger or more intense A is, the greater the change must be before a difference can be detected.
What are some limitations of using Absolute and Difference Threshold procedures?
- Measurement can be affected by people who tend to be “yeasayers” or “naysayers”
- Expectations, alertness, and motives can also influence a person’s response.
- AKA Response Bias
The Signal-Detection Theory helps remove the response bias of observer’s responses by…
By breaking responses into:
1-Sensory Process (stimulus intensity)
2-Decision Process (influenced by response bias)
*an individual’s true sensitivity to any given signal is able to be predicted by separating a person’s response bias from their sensory capacity.
Sensory Adaptation occurs…
When a repetitious or unchanging stimulus causes sensation to fade or disappear. (ex. getting in a cold pool and you cease to feel cold after a while. Not being aware of the feeling of a watch on your wrist.)
What kinds of stimuli can we never fully adapt to?
- Intense stimuli
- Visual stimuli
What is one likely to experience in a prolonged state of Sensory Deprivation?
One may become irritated, disoriented, and may experience “waking dreams”. Responses to sensory deprivation also depends on a person’s expectations and interpretations of what is happening.
Selective Attention is…
Focusing on some parts of the environment and blocking out others.
Inattentional Blindness is…
Failure to consciously perceive what you are looking at because you are not attending to it.
