Sensation and Perception Flashcards
Perception
A process that makes sensory patterns meaningful. It is perception that makes these words meaningful, rather than just a string of visual patterns. To make this happen, perception draws heavily on memory, motivation, emotion, and other psychological processes.
Sensation
The process by which stimulation of a sensory receptor produces neural impulses that the brain interprets as a sound, a visual image, an odor, a taste, a pain, or other sensory image. Sensation represents the first steps in processing of incoming information.
How does stimulation become sensation?
The brain senses the world indirectly because the sense organs convert stimulation into the language of the nervous system: neural messages.
Transduction
Transformation of one form of energy into another- especially the transformation of stimulus information into nerve signals by the sense organs. Without transduction, ripe tomatoes would not appear red.
Sensory adaptation
Loss of responsiveness in receptor cells after stimulation has remained unchanged for a while, as when a swimmer becomes adapted to the temperature of the water.
Sensory habituation (perceptual adaptation)
Perception of sensations is partially due to how focused we are on them
Cocktail-party phenomenon
The involuntary switch of attention when someone says your name
Absolute threshold
The amount of stimulation necessary for a stimulus to be detected. In practice, this means that the presence or absence of a stimulus is detected correctly half the time over many trials.
Subliminal messages
Stimuli below the absolute threshold
Some claim it can change behavior
Difference threshold
The smallest amount by which a stimulus can be changed and the difference be detected half the time.
Just noticeable difference (JND)
Same as the difference threshold
Weber’s Law
This concept says that the size of a JND is proportional to the intensity of the stimulus; the JND is large when the stimulus intensity is high and is small when the stimulus intensity is low.
Fechner’s Law
The magnitude of a stimulus can be estimated by the formula S=klogR, where S=sensation, R=stimulus, and k=a constant that differs for each sensory modality (sight, touch, temperature, etc.)
Steven’s power law
A law of magnitude estimation that is more accurate than Fechner’s law and covers a wider variety of stimuli. It is represented by the formula S=kI^a, where S=sensation, k=a constant, I=stimulus intensity, and a=a power exponent that depends on the sense being measured.
Signal detection theory
Explains how we detect “signals”, consisting of stimulation affecting our eyes, ears, nose, skin, and other sense organs. Signal detection theory says that sensation is a judgement the sensory system makes about incoming stimulation. Often, it occurs outside of consciousness. In contrast to older theories from psychophysics, signal detection theory takes observer characteristics into account.
Response criteria (receiver operating characteristics)
Factors influencing signal detection (how motivated we are to detect certain stimuli, what we expect to perceive)
False positive
When we think we perceive a stimulus that is not there
False alarm
False negative
Not perceiving a stimulus that is present
Miss
Hit
Correctly detecting a stimulus that is there
Correct rejection
not perceiving a stimulus that is not there
How are the senses alike? And how are they different?
The senses all operate in much the same way, but each extracts different information and sends it to its own specialized processing region in the brain.
Energy senses
Vision, hearing, and touch
Gather light, sound waves, pressure
Chemical senses
Taste and smell
Gather chemicals
Vision
The dominant sense in human beings
Involves gathering light with the eyes
Cornea
Protective covering of the eye that helps focus the light
Pupil
Light goes through this
Controlled by the iris
Opens to let more light in
Smaller to let less light in
Lens
During accommodation, focuses the light that enters the pupil
Curved and flexible to focus the light
Photoreceptors
Light-sensitive cells (neurons) in the retina that convert light energy to neural impulses. The photoreceptors are as far as light gets into the visual system.
Feature detectors
Groups of neurons in the visual cortex that respond to different types of visual images
Some for lines, curves, motion, and many other features
Pathway of light in eye
Cornea –> aqueous humor –> pupil (manipulated by iris) –> lens focuses –> vitreous humor –> retina (fovea for clear sight) –> optic nerve
Retina
The thin, light-sensitive layer at the back of the eyeball. The retina contains millions of photoreceptors and other nerve cells.
Transduction of light in the retina
Incoming light –> photoreceptors –> bipolar cells synthesize –> ganglion cells –> optic nerve –> cortex
Rods
Photoreceptors in the retina that are especially sensitive to dim, black-and-white light but not to colors.
Cones
Photoreceptors in the retina that are especially sensitive to colors but not to dim light.
Fovea
The tiny area of sharpest vision in the retina.
An indentation at the very center of the retina that contains the highest concentration of cones.
Bipolar cells
Combine impulses from receptor cells and transmit to ganglion cells
Ganglion cells
Integrate several bipolar cells into a single fire
Horizontal cells
Connect receptors to each other
Amacrine cells
Link bipolar cells to other bipolar cells and ganglion to other ganglion cells
Optic nerve
The bundle of neurons that carries visual information from the retina to the brain.
Made up of the axons of ganglion cells and sends impulses to the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus.
Blind spot
The point where the optic nerve exits the eye and where there are no photoreceptors. Any stimulus that falls on this area cannot be seen.
Optic chiasma
Each optic nerve comes together and is subdivided into inner/outer vision bundles. Inner bundles cross over to the other hemisphere
The spot where the nerves cross each other
Optic tract
Bundles from both eyes travel to the primary visual cortex in the occipital lobe in the back of the brain
Brightness
A psychological sensation caused by the intensity of light waves.
Occipital lobe
Contains the visual cortex
Receives the impulses from the cells of the retina, which activate feature detectors
How visual stimulation goes from the eyes to the brain
Lens of eye reverses image on retina –> left side of each retina = right visual field, and vice versa –> optic nerve –> optic chasma (left side of retina crosses over to left hemisphere, right to left) –> optic tract –> lateral geniculate nucleus –> visual association cortex –> primary visual cortex
Wavelength influences
Color
Intensity (amplitude) influences
Brightness
Color
Also called hue. Color is not a property of things in the external world. Rather, it is a psychological sensation created in the brain from information obtained by the eyes from the wavelengths of visible light.
Electromagnetic spectrum
The entire range of electromagnetic energy, including radio waves, X rays, microwaves, and visible light.
Visible spectrum
The tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum to which our eyes are sensitive. The visible spectrum of some creatures may be slightly different than our own.
Long wavelengths create
Red
Short wavelengths create
Blue
Trichromatic theory
The idea that colors are sensed by three different types of cones sensitive to light in the red, blue, and green wavelengths. The trichromatic theory explains the earliest stage of color sensation.
Opponent-process theory
The idea that cells in the visual system process colors in complementary pairs, such as red or green or as yellow or blue. The opponent-process theory explains color sensation from the bipolar cells onward in the visual system. If one sensor is stimulated, its pair is inhibited from firing.
Afterimages
Sensations that linger after the stimulus is removed. Most visual afterimages are negative afterimages, which appear in reversed colors.
Color blindness
Typically a genetic disorder (although sometimes the result of trauma) that prevents an individual from discriminating certain colors. The most common form is red-green color blindness.
Hearing
The energy sense that uses sound waves that are collected by the ears
Sound waves
Vibrations in the air that are collected by the ears
Amplitude
The physical strength of a wave. This is usually measured from peak (top) to valley (bottom) on a graph of the wave. In hearing, determines loudness (dB)
Frequency
The number of cycles completed by a wave in a given amount of time, usually a second. In hearing, determines pitch (MHz)
Tympanic membrane
The eardrum.
Cochlea
The primary organ of hearing; a coiled tube in the inner ear, where sound waves are transduced into nerve messages.
Basilar membrane
A thin strip of tissue sensitive to vibrations in the cochlea. The basilar membrane contains hair cells connected to neurons. When a sound wave causes the hair cells to vibrate, the associated neurons become excited. As a result, the sound waves are converted (transduced) into nerve activity.
Organ of Corti
Neurons activated by movement of the hair cells