Our Sensational Senses

Question 1

Sensation is…

Answer 1

Detection of physical energy emitted or reflected by physical objects. We could not sense reality without it.

Question 2

Perception is…

Answer 2

Mental operations that organize sensory impulses into meaningful patterns.

Question 3

The organ of touch, pressure, heat, cold, and pain is…

Answer 3

Skin

Question 4

The organ of hearing and balance is…

Answer 4

Ear

Question 5

What contains receptors responsible for a sense of bodily movement?

Answer 5

Skeletal Muscles

Question 6

Sense Receptors are…

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

How do we experience different kinds of sensations if all sensory neurons communicate the same way?

Answer 7

The Nervous System encodes the messages into 2 types:

• Anatomical
• Functional

Question 8

Explain: Anatomical Coding (AKA Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies)

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Explain: Functional Coding

Answer 9

Information about WHICH cells are firing, RATE of firing, and PATTERNING of firing. Explains variation within a sense.

Question 10

Synesthesia is…

Answer 10

When the stimulation of one sense consistently evokes a sensation in another sense. (ex. the sound of a clarinet tastes like cherries)

Question 11

Psychophysics is…

Answer 11

The study of how physical properties of stimuli are related to our psychological experience of them.

Question 12

The smallest amount of energy that a person can detect reliably is…

Answer 12

Absolute Threshold

Question 13

The smallest difference in stimulation that a person can detect reliably is…

Answer 13

Difference Threshold

Question 14

Which stimuli have a more easily recognizable Difference Threshold?
-2 small pebbles
OR
-2 gigantic boulders

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

What are some limitations of using Absolute and Difference Threshold procedures?

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

The Signal-Detection Theory helps remove the response bias of observer’s responses by…

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

Sensory Adaptation occurs…

Answer 17

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.)

Question 18

What kinds of stimuli can we never fully adapt to?

Answer 18

• Intense stimuli

- Visual stimuli

Question 19

What is one likely to experience in a prolonged state of Sensory Deprivation?

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

Selective Attention is…

Answer 20

Focusing on some parts of the environment and blocking out others.

Question 21

Inattentional Blindness is…

Answer 21

Failure to consciously perceive what you are looking at because you are not attending to it.