Sensation and Perception

Sensation
Sensations can be defined as the passive process of bringing
information from the outside world into the body and to the
brain. The process is passive in the sense that we do not have to be
consciously engaging in a "sensing" process. Perception can be defined
as the active process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting the
information brought to the brain by the senses. #it’s time to
sense some things!
• Sensory receptors - specialized forms of neurons.
• Sense organs:
• eyes
• ears
• nose
• skin
• taste buds

Some important terms to remember #Yaad Karlo, don’t ignore

• Absolute threshold - smallest amount of energy needed for a person to
consciously detect a stimulus (50% of time)
• Just noticeable difference smallest difference between two stimuli that
is detectable (50% of time).
• Habituation - tendency of the brain to stop attending to constant,
unchanging information.
• Sensory adaptation - tendency of sensory receptor cells to become less
responsive to a stimulus that is unchanging
Eye Sensory Receptors

A) wave length (also referred to as frequency, since the longer a wave,

the less often/quickly it occurs) - affects colour perception (ex.,
red=approx. 700, yellow approx. 600)

b) wave amplitude (this is the size/height of the wave) - affects

brightness perception. HUE means colour of the light.

• Brightness - amplitude of the wave; higher waves brighter; lower

waves dimmer.
• Color - length of the wave; long wavelengths red; short waves
blue
 • Saturation - purity of the color people see.

Structure of the EYE: #have a bird’s eye on the topic of eye

1) Cornea - the round, transparent area that allows light to pass into the
eye.

2) Lens - the transparent structure that focuses light onto the retina.

3) Retina - inner membrane of the eye that receives information about

light using rods and cones. The functioning of the retina is similar to the
spinal cord - both act as a highway for information to travel on.

4) Pupil - opening at the centre of the iris which controls the amount of
light entering the eye. Dilates and constricts.

5) Rods & Cones - many more rods (approximately 120 million) than
cones (approx. 6.4 million).

a) cones - visual receptor cells that are important in daylight vision

and colour vision. The cones work well in daylight, but not in dim
lighting. This is why it is more difficult to see colours in low light.
 b) rods - visual receptor cells that are important for night vision and
peripheral vision. The rods are better for night vision because they
are much more sensitive than cones. #You use rod tube lights in
home during night so remember rod cells are used in dim light

Color Vision

#Time to make your life colorful

• Trichromatic theory - theory of color vision that proposes three types of

cones: red, blue, and green. Young and Helmholtz
• Opponent-process theory - theory of color vision that proposes four
primary colors with cones arranged in pairs: red and green, blue and
yellow. Edward Herring

Sound
#Ughhh too much sound in your head…. don’t get distracted

• Amplitude –volume (how soft or loud a sound is).

• Wavelength –frequency or pitch
• Purity –timbre (a richness in the tone of the sound).

Structure of Ear-
• Cochlea - snail-shaped structure of the inner ear that is filled with fluid.
• Organ of Corti – rests in the basilar membrane; contains receptor cells
for sense of hearing.
• Vestibular system- responsible for static balance.
• Semicircular canals- responsible for dynamic balance.
• Three important bones of middle ear- Hammer, anvil, Stirrup
Theories of sound perception
• Pitch - frequency of the sound waves; higher frequencies are perceived
as higher pitches.
• Place theory - states that different pitches are experienced by the
stimulation of hair cells in different locations on the basilar membrane.
➢ Important for sounds who have frequency of more than 5000.
➢ Given by Helmholtz
 • Frequency theory - states that pitch is related to the speed of vibrations
in the basilar membrane.
➢ Important for sounds who have frequency of less than 5000
➢ Rutherford gave this theory

Gustation

#Ummm….any foodie here?

• Taste buds – taste receptor cells in mouth; responsible for sense of taste
• Gustation - the sensation of a taste.
• Five Basic Tastes:
• Sweet
• Sour
• Salty
• Bitter
• Umami
Somesthetic senses
Somaesthetic senses - the skin senses, the kinaesthetic sense, and the
vestibular senses.
1-Skin senses - the sensations of touch, pressure, temperature, and pain.
2-Kinesthetic sense - sense of the location of body parts in relation to the
ground and each other.
3. Vestibular senses - the sensations of movement, balance

#My sixth sense says you going to crack this exam!!!!

Signal detection theory
• Given by Swets and David.
• This theory has 4 important terms.
• Hit- when person perceives the stimulus when in fact it was present.
• Miss- when person do not perceive the stimulus when in fact it was
present there,
• False alarm- When person perceives the stimulus when in fact it was
absent.
• Correct rejection- when person rejects the perception of stimulus and
the stimulus is absent

Perception

the method by which the sensations experienced at any given moment

are interpreted and organized in some meaningful fashion.

Perceptual constancies
• Size constancy - the tendency to interpret an object as always being the
same actual size, regardless of its distance.
• Shape constancy - the tendency to interpret the shape of an object as
being constant, even when its shape changes on the retina.
• Brightness constancy – the tendency to perceive the apparent
brightness of an object as the same even when the light conditions
change.
• Depth perception - the ability to perceive the world in three dimensions.
➢ This experiment is known as Visual cliff experiment.
➢ It was done by Gibson and Walk
 (#trick to remember the name of psychologist is- “children walk on
the table in this experiment”)

Cues in perception

Monocular cues – cues for perceiving depth based on one eye only.

Linear Perspective

ocular

Texture gradient

Areal perspective

Binocular cues - cues for perceiving depth based on both eyes.

1-Convergence - the rotation of the two eyes to focus on a single object,
resulting in greater convergence for closer objects and lesser
convergence if objects are distant.

2. Binocular disparity - the difference in images between the two eyes,

which is greater for objects that are close and smaller for distant objects.

Illusions
Ponzo illusion

Ebbinghaus illusion

Ames room illusion

 Attention

#Alright now pay your attention on attention

• Attention is the allocation of limited processing resources.

• Visual features such as shape, colour, texture, motion is processed in
parallel.
Types of attention
• Focused Attention: Refers to our ability to focus attention on a stimulus.
• Sustained Attention: The ability to attend to a stimulus or activity over a
long period of time.
• Selective Attention: The ability to attend to a specific stimulus or activity
in the presence of other distracting stimuli.
 • Alternating Attention: The ability to change focus attention between
two or more stimuli.
• Divided Attention: The ability to attend different stimuli or attention at
the same time.
Broadbent’s filter theory

 Broadbent’s filter theory proposed that filtering occurs early in

processing based on physical characteristics (pitch, ear).
 Neural evidence supports the ability to select one ear to listen to.
Cocktail party effect – The cocktail party effect is the phenomenon of the
brain's ability to focus one's auditory attention on a particular stimulus while
filtering out a range of other stimuli {Cherry} (# cocktail me cherry dalek pi jao)
 Bottleneck effect -The bottleneck theory suggests that individuals have a
limited number of attentional resources that they can use at one time.
Treisman Attenuation theory
  Treisman’s attenuation theory – subjects deemphasize but not filter out
the unattended message.
 Semantic criteria apply to all messages, filtered or not.

 The attenuator analyses incoming messages by not only

physical characteristic but also by the language and meaning of
the message, and the messages are then let through into the
final output

Stroop effect

➢ Colour words were presented printed in different ink colours.

➢ Control stimuli were non-colour words in different inks or colour bars
(not words)
➢ Subjects were asked to name the ink colour as quickly as possible.
➢
Why Stroop effects happen
  Automatic processes are difficult to stop.
 It is nearly impossible to look at a word without reading it.
 Neutral words name non-colors so ink can be named without
interference.
 Color words that conflict with ink color take longer because reading the
word cannot be inhibited.

Emotions
#Ps- don’t get emotional while reading this topic

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), emotion is defined

as “a complex reaction pattern, involving experiential, behavioral and
physiological elements.
Evolutionary Theory of Emotion

 It was naturalist Charles Darwin who proposed that emotions evolved

because they were adaptive and allowed humans and animals to survive
and reproduce.
 The limbic system includes the hypothalamus, thalamus, amygdala, and
the hippocampus.
 The thalamus serves as a sensory relay center.
 The amygdala plays a role in processing emotional information and
sending that information on to cortical structures
 . The hippocampus integrates emotional experience with cognition.
The James-Lange theory
  The James-Lange theory is one of the best-known examples of a
physiological theory of emotion. Independently proposed by
psychologist William James and physiologist Carl Lange.
 The James-Lange theory of emotion suggests that emotions occur as a
result of physiological reactions to events.
 This theory suggests that seeing an external stimulus leads to a
physiological reaction. Your emotional reaction is dependent upon how
you interpret those physical reactions.
 For example, suppose you are walking in the woods and see a bear. You
begin to tremble, and your heart begins to race.

The Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion

 Walter Cannon disagreed with the James-Lange theory of emotion on
several different grounds.
 Cannon also suggested that emotional responses occur much too quickly
to be simply products of physical states.
 When you encounter a danger in the environment, you will often feel
afraid before you start to experience the physical symptoms associated
with fear.
 we feel emotions and experience physiological reactions such as
sweating, trembling, and muscle tension simultaneously.
 theory proposes that emotions result when the thalamus sends a
message to the brain in response to a stimulus. Also known as Thalamic
theory of emotion

Schachter-Singer Theory
 Also known as the two-factor theory of emotion.
 the Schachter-Singer theory is an example of a cognitive theory of
emotion.
  This theory suggests that the physiological arousal occurs first, and then
the individual must identify the reason for this arousal to experience and
label it as an emotion.
 A stimulus leads to a physiological response that is then cognitively
interpreted and labeled, resulting in an emotion.

Cognitive Appraisal Theory

 Richard Lazarus was a pioneer in this area of emotion, and this theory is
often referred to as the Lazarus theory of emotion.
 According to this theory, the sequence of events first involves a stimulus,
followed by thought, which then leads to the simultaneous experience
of a physiological response and the emotion.
 For example, if you encounter a bear in the woods, you might
immediately begin to think that you are in great danger. This then leads
to the emotional experience of fear and the physical reactions
associated with the fight-or-flight response.
#I know you will not flight from the problems; you’ll fight!!!!

#Ekman identified the six basic emotions as anger, surprise, disgust,

enjoyment, fear, and sadness

#Well done kiddo!!! Now you deserve your fav snack!

#Also pardon me for any typos….you’re a smarty pants!!!