Psychology- Lecture Seven

Introduction
Origins
Gustav Fechner: Conducted experiments that would look into the sun and he became interested in light
Psychophysics: the science of defining quantitative relationships between physical and psychological
events. Research is aimed at relating physical stimuli to the contents of consciousness.
- Absolute threshold: Level of stimulus intensity required to create a conscious experience
- Just noticeable difference: smallest magnitude of stimulus is required to detect discrete stimuli
(advanced in Weber’s law), converge or diverge a stimulus
Signal Advanced Theory: accounts for Individual biases
Sensation: The ability to detect a stimulus. Features of the environment that are used to create
understanding of the world
Perception: The act of giving meaning to a detected stimulus. Combining of sensation arriving from the
sensory system with prior knowledge
Transduction: Conversion of one energy to another. Process where stimuli are converted to neural
electrochemical energy.
- Firing patterns of neurons are what become our perceptions to us
Concepts
Perception: How do we assign meaning to incoming sensory information?
Bottom-up Processing: Processing the elementary messages from the environment
Top-Down Processing: By applying memory you can see things inside images
Intromission Theory
- The theory has replaced extramission theory of vision
- Visual perception comes from the same representation of the object entering the eyes
Light:
- Electromagnetic energy exists as both particles and waves
- We only detect a small band
Wavelength: perceived hue and the frequency
The Eye
Cornea: The transparent tissue which allows light rays to enter the eye and focus on the objects
Iris/Pupil: Coloured part of the eye, consists of muscular diaphragm which regulated light entering the
eye by expanding and contracting the pupil
Lens: Crystalline lens inside the eye that enables the changing of the focus
Retina: Contains photoreceptors (light-sensitive neurons)
Fovea: Small pit that contains the highest concentration of colour sensitive light receptors which has the
highest visual acuity in the retina
Photoreceptors
- Transduce light into neutral activity
Rods: Dim light, sensitive to all wavelengths of light, black and white vision, high resolution (one bipolar
cell and one cone), around 5 million cones in each human eye
Photoreceptors
- Perception of wavelength
3 Types of Cones
- S-Cones: short wave-length cones (blues)
- M-Cones: Medium wavelength cones (yellow and greens)
- L-Cones: Long-wavelength cones (reds)
Tetrachromats: Humming birds
Location in the Retina
- The rods are found in the periphery which respond to the amount of light and signals information about
motion
- The cones are found in the fovea which responds to quality of life and signals information about detail
Blindspot
- Where the optic nerve leaves the eye
- The visual system usually fills in the blindspot with information from surrounding area
Bipolar Cells
- Intermediate cells that determine the information flow from photoreceptors to ganglion cells
Diffuse Bipolar Cells
- In the periphery which responds to around 50 rods that increases sensitivity but reduces acuity (1 diffuse
bipolar: 50 rods
Convergence of Information: Many rods one diffuse bipolar cells
Midget Bipolar Cells: Found in the fovea (centre) which receives input from a single cone and pass on
info to a single ganglion (1 midget bipolar: one cone)
Retinal Ganglia
- Final layer of the retina
M-Cell (large ganglion cell)
- Mostly respond to rod cells via diffuse bipolar cells
P-Cell (small ganglion cell)
- Mostly respond to cone cells via midget bipolar cell
- Retinal Ganglion Cell axons form the optic tract
Retinal Ganglia
Receptive Field: The region on the retina in which visual stimuli influence neural firing rate
- Receptive fields of individual retinal ganglion cells
ON-center, OFF-surround cell
- A ganglion cell that increases firing in response to increase in light intensity in its receptive field center
- When light hits the center, firing rate at maximum
- When light covers full receptive field, firing rate returns to baseline
- When light on surround, baseline firing is repressed
The Visual Pathway
- Information from the retina leaves the eye via the optic nerve
- Information from the optic nerve travels to the optic chasm
- Lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of thalamus
- Visual Cortex/Striate Cortex/V1
Visual Cortex
- Feature detectors, receptive fields of individual neurons in V1
- Receptive fields of striate cortex are not circular (like the RGC fields) but elongated
- Simple Cells: Neuron fired vigorously when the line is oriented vertically, but reduces firing
horizontally
- Complex Cells: Fire most when lines are in certain motion
Visual Cortical Pathways
- Processing after visual cortex
- What stream: ventral stream, temporal lobe object recognition
- Where stream: Dorsal, parietal lobe location of objects in space
Gestalt Principles
Principle of figure-ground: The eye differentiates an object from its surrounding area. A form silhouette
or shape is naturally perceived as figure (object), while the surrounding area is perceived as ground
Principle of Proximity: Occurs when elements are placed close together. They tend to be perceived as a
group.
Principle of Similarity: Occurs when objects look similar to one another. People often perceive them as
a group or a pattern
Principle of Closure: Occurs when an object is incomplete or a space is not completely enclosed. If
enough of the shape is indicated, people perceive the whole by filling in the missing information.
Principle of Continuation: Occurs when the eye is compelled to move through one object and continue
to another object
Principle of Common Fate: Occurs when objects that are moving together will be grouped together
Biological Motion
- The pattern of movement of living beings (human and animal)
- Use of motion to identify the nature of objects and beings which helps us to identify specific people and
human intent
Visual Perception
- Issues with visual perception (blindsight and agnosia)
- Visual perception without light sensation (sensory substitution)
Blindsight
- Damage/lesions in the visual cortex lead to conscious blindness
- Typically only on one side blindness in the opposite visual field, half blind
- LGN and lower pathways are still intact
- When pathways are asked to identify certain visual stimuli in their blinded visual field, hey can do so
with accuracy above chance
- Identify object shape
- Localize Objects
- Detect emotions in faces
- This suggests that information is still being transmitted from eyes to lower visual processing which is
guiding our behavior, conscious and unconscious vision