Sensation & Perception Flashcards
Sensation
This is the process where our senses like sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch pick up information from the world around us.
Perception
Processing of the sensory information to make sense of its significance
What is threshold
How many types of thresholds are there ?
This is the smallest amount of something (like light sound taste that we can sense). Is below this level, we won’t notice it
Minimum amount of stimulus that renders the difference in perception
3 types : Absolute threshold, threshold of conscious perception, difference threshold
Absolute threshold
Minimum of stimulus energy that is needed to activate a sensory system.
How bright, loud, or intense stimuli must be before it is sensed
Threshold of conscious perception
If something is below this threshold, our census picking up, but it doesn’t get picked up by parts of our brain that make us aware of it
Also called subliminal perception
Difference threshold
Refers to the minimum difference in magnitude between two stimuli before one can perceive this difference
proximal stimuli
directly interacts with sensory receptors such as photoreceptors
Distal stimuli
stimuli outside the body (fire)
Weber’s law
perception of intensity of a stimulus grows at a slower rate than the actual physical intensity
our ability to detect changes in a stimulus depends on the initial intensity of that stimulus
the ability to detect differences depends on the starting point (initial intensity) and the proportion of change
Signal detection theory
Stimulus perception is dependent also on experience, expectationsand motives
Trials of signal detection theory
RESPONSE BIAS
how people make decisions under certain conditions (such as in noisy or uncertain environments)
Trials of signal detection theory
CATCH TRIAL
Trial in which the signal is presented
Trials of signal detection theory
NOISE TRAIL
no signal trial
Trials of signal detection theory
HIT
CORRECT NEGATIVE
Identifying the signals when it is presented
Correctly identifying that signal was not present
Trials of signal detection theory
MISS
FALSE ALARM
Missing a signal
Saying yes when the signal was not present
Adaptation
Getting used to to a stimuli so much that you do not feel it
This could also be constricting or dilating the pupils
psychophysics
Study of the relationship between the physical nature of stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they evoke
