Sensation and Perception Flashcards
What are our sense? (there are 10)
vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste
temperature, pain, balance, acceleration, body position
What is sensation?
Receiving information about the world via our senses
Uses sensory receptor cells which are sensitive to physical properties of the world
What are receptor cells? Give an example
Specialised neurones which respond to particular physical properties of environmental stimuli
e.g., in order to see, our eyes have receptor cells sensitive to light
What is perception? What type of processing does it involve?
Our experience of the world
It is a complex process involving both bottom-up and top-down processing
Out of sensation and perception, which is the start point and which is the end point?
Sensation = start point Perception = end point
Why is perception important?
- It is our only source of info about the world
- It underlies all our interactions with the environment
- It allows survival
True or false?
Perception is the starting point for all psychological processes e.g., cognition, social, MH, developmental/education
True
What are some practical applications of perception?
Understanding changes in ageing, disease and injury
Understanding demands of driving and interacting with technology
Use when designing artificial perceptual systems e.g., driverless cars
True or false?
In a perceptual system each system has its own function
True
What are the different types of perceptual systems and what do they deal with?
Vision - object recognition, navigation, motion perception
Audition - object recognition, localisation
Touch - object recognition, pain
Taste + Smell - chemical detection, nutrition and poison avoidance
What are the parts of the perceptual process?
Distal stimulus, proximal stimulus, receptor processes, neural processing, perception, recognition, action, knowledge
What is the distal stimulus?
A physical object is the environment
can be vision, audition, touch etc.
What is the proximal stimulus?
a representation of the distal stimulus
info about distal stimulus is received by sensory receptor cells
each sense receives info about DS via different type of environmental physical energy
What do receptor processes carry out?
Transduction
What is transduction? Give 2 examples
The transformation of environmental physical energy into electrical energy in NS
vision - receptors in retina transform light
audition - receptors in inner ear transform sounds waves
What happens in neural processing?
Electrical signals are transmitted from one neuron to the next
the signal is changed as neurons interact
What is perception in the Perceptual Process
The conscious sensory experience
What is recognition?
Placing an object in a category
What is visual agnosia? What does it highlight the difference between?
= inability to recognise objects
highlights distinction between recognition and perception as you can perceive the object but not recognise it
What is action?
movement e.g., eyes, head, body
What is knowledge do?
Can influence perception, recognition and action
What does knowledge use? Why is that important?
uses top down processing which is important for helping simplify the complex perceptual process
Is recognition always required? Give an example
No
e.g., reflexes - something flying towards you, dont need to recognise what it is to move out of the way
What are the 2 approaches to studying perception?
- Physiological approach
- Psychosocial approach