CHAPTER TWO

SENSATION AND PERCEPTION

Learning Outcomes
At the end of this chapter, you are expected to understand
the:
 meaning of sensation and perception
 difference and similarities of sensation and perception
 factors affecting sensation and perception
 principles of sensation and perception, and
 reasons for sensory and perceptual differences amount
individuals.
2.1.The meanings of sensation and perception
Sensation is the process whereby stimulation of receptor cells in
the eyes, ears, nose, mouth , and surface of the skin sends
nerve impulses to the brain. Sensations are closely tied to what is
happening in the sensory systems themselves. Color, brightness,
the pitch of tone or a bitter taste are examples of sensations.
The starting point of sensations is a stimulus. A form of energy
(such as light waves or sound waves) that can affect sensory
organs (such as the eye or the ear). Sensation is therefore the
process that detects the stimulus from one‘s body or from the
environment.
How different is sensation from perception?
In real life, you seldom experience simple sensations. Instead of
simple sensations, perceptual processes are constantly at work
to modify sensory input into what are actually experiences.
Perception is the process that organizes sensations into
meaningful patterns. It is the process where by the brain
interprets sensations, giving them order and meaning. Thus,
hearing sounds and seeing colors is largely a sensory process,
but forming a melody and detecting patterns and shapes is
largely a perceptual process.
Why do we say “largely” in the above expression?
We say largely because in everyday life, it is almost impossible
to separate sensation from perception. As soon as the brain
receives sensations, it automatically interprets or perceives
them, and without sensations of some kind perception could not
occur.
Can you mention examples showing the difference between
sensation and perception?
Consider, for example, the black marks and letters in this page.
Visual sensation lets you detect the black marks. Visual
perception lets you organize the black marks into letters and
works. For a real life example of the difference between
sensation and perception consider a case study presented by
neurologist Oliver Sacks (1985) one of his patients suffered
from brain damage that caused him to develop prospagnosia,
the inability to recognize human faces. The patient could
recognize people by sound of their voices, but he could not
recognize them by light.
His disorder was so severe that he sometimes patted tire
hydrants, thinking they were children‘s heads. He would even
grab his wife‘s head mistaking it for a hat yet he was not near
sighted; he could easily see a pin on the floor. Thus he had
people‘s facial features, but he could not organize them into
recognizable face (visual perceptions).
2.2.The sensory laws:
There are certain sensory laws that explain how sensation
works. the two general laws of sensation are
 Sensory threshold and
 sensory adaptation
Sensory threshold – -is the minimum point of intensity a
sound can be detected. There are two laws of sensory
threshold: these are
 absolute threshold and
 the law of difference threshold.
The absolute threshold -The minimum amount of stimulation
a person can detect is called the absolute threshold.
for example, a cup of coffee would require a certain amount of
sugar before you could detect a sweet taste.
 The difference threshold
In addition to detecting the presence of a stimulus, you also detect
changes in the intensity of a stimulus. The minimum amount of
change that can be detected is called difference threshold. For
example, a cup of coffee would require a certain amount of
additional sugar before you could detect an increase in its
sweetness. Similarly, you would have to increase the intensity of
the sound from your tape recorder a certain amount before you
could detect a change in its volume. Like the absolute threshold,
the difference threshold for a particular sensory experience varies
from person to person and from occasion to occasion.
Imagine that you are waking down a street at night. Your
predisposition to detect a sound depends, in part, on your
estimate of the probability of being mugged, so you would be
more likely to perceive the sound of footsteps on a
neighborhood you believe to be dangerous T han in a neighbor-
hood you believe to be safe.
The difference threshold
In addition to detecting the presence of a stimulus, you also
detect changes in the intensity of a stimulus. The minimum
amount of change that can be detected is called difference
threshold.
For example, a cup of coffee would require a certain amount of
additional sugar before you could detect an increase in its
sweetness. Similarly, you would have to increase the intensity of
the sound from your tape recorder a certain amount before you
could detect a change in its volume.
Sensory Adaptation
One possible reason is that if a stimulus remains constant in
intensity, you will gradually stop noticing it. For example, after
diving into a swimming pool, you might shiver. Yet a few
minutes later you might invite someone to join you saying,
―The water is fine on entering a friend‘s dormitory room, you
might be struck by the repugnant stench of month-old garbage.
Yet a few minutes later you might not notice the odor at all, this
tendency of our sensory receptors to have decreasing
responsiveness to unchanging stimulus is called sensory
adaptation. Sensory adaptation lets you detect potentially
important change in your environment while ignoring
unchanging aspects of it. For example, when vibrations
repeatedly stimulate your skin, you stop noticing them.
Thus, if you were having a bumpy train ride that made your seat
vibrate against your bottom, you would initially notice the
vibrations, but it would serve little purpose for you to continue
noticing them.
2.3.Perception
You have seen earlier that perception is a meaning making
process. Now you study more about this meaning making
process of the human intelligent life. It helps you understand
the major characteristics of the perceptual process:
 selectivity of perception,
 from perception,
 depth perception,
 perceptual constancy, and
 perceptual illusion.
2.3.1.Selectivity of perception: Attention
Note that at any given time, your sense organ is bombarded by
many stimuli. Yet you perceive a few of them. Were you aware
of, for example, the noise in your room until you read this
sentence? You may not. Yet input from the environment was
coming into your ears all the time. In fact you may be
attending to one of such incoming input ignoring the other
noises. Such selective perception is called attention.
Attention is therefore the term given to the perceptual process
that selects certain inputs for inclusion in your conscious
experience, or awareness, at any given time, ignoring others.
What does this selectivity of perception imply?
The selectivity of perception implies, among other things, that
our field of experience is divided into what is known as Focus
and Margin.
 Events or stimuli that you perceive clearly are the focus of
your experience and
 other items or stimuli that you perceive dimly or vaguely are
in the margin of your attention.
 Paying attention is in general a function of two factors:
 factors external to the perceiver and
 factors internal to the perceiver.
 External factors refer to factors that are generally found in the objects or
stimuli to be perceived. Some of the external characteristics of objects that
determine whether you are going to attend them or not are
 size and intensity,
 repetition,
 novelty (or newness), and
 movement.
 Other things being constant, bigger and brighter stimuli are more likely to
capture your attention than smaller and dimmer objects. That is why
announcements and notice are written in big and block letters. In the same
way, people who dress bright colored clothes tend to capture your attention.
• Repetition is the second factor. You are more likely to
attend to stimuli that repeatedly or frequently occur in your
perceptual field. A misspelled word is more likely to be
detected if it occurs many times in a paragraph than when it
occurs only once or twice. You are going to notice a person
if he continuously follows you as compared to a person you
meet only once or twice. That is, by the way, why slogans,
advertisings, and announcement are repeated continuously to
audiences and spectators.
In a word, repetition is attention getting. However, no matter
how big or bright a stimulus is, or else no matter how
frequently it may occur, you may not give it attention as if it
occurs in the same way all the time. This is basically because
you are likely to adapt to it and then stop responding to it. This
is called sensory adaptation or habituation.
It is the tendency to ignore a stimulus that occurs continuously
in the same way.
the third factor of attention is novelty or newness the extent to
which a stimulus creates a contrast with the rest objects in the
environment.
Novel or new objects create a sharp contrast with the
environment and hence tend to capture your attention.
Remember here why you are given aspecial attention as a guest,
why first-born children get more attention from parents etc. The
last but not the least external factor in attention getting is
movement. Moving objects tend to get your attention more than
non-moving or stagnant objects. Your eyes are involuntarily
attracted to movement the way butterflies are attracted to light.
moving objects are instinctually felt dangerous or threatening
and you are reflexively
responding to them to defend yourself. Moreover, moving objects bring
with them changes in stimulation or newness in their presentation In
general, stimuli in the environment that, are bigger and brighter, or more
frequently occurring, Or newer or moving are likely to get your attention.
Paying attention is not, however, determined only by these characteristics
of objects. Even when a stimulus is bigger, brighter, new frequent, or
moving, you may not give it attention if you are not psychologically ready
to attend to it. Hence, attention giving also depends on your psychological
states as an observer.
What are some of the internal psychological states of the observer that
affect as to which stimulus on pays attention to or ignore? Psychologists
have identified two important psychological factors:
 Set or expectancy and
 motives or needs.
Set refers to the idea that you may be ready and Primed for certain
kinds of sensory input. Set, or expectancy, therefore, varies from
person to person. It is important not only in the selection of
sensory input for inclusion in the focus of your attention. It is also
important in organizing the selected sensory input. To illustrate the
role of set in attention, consider the husband who is expecting an
important phone call. He will hear the telephone ring in the night
while his wife does not. The wife, on the other hand, may more
likely to hear the baby crying than the telephone ringing. Of
course, if the wife is expecting an important cell, the reverse may
be true.
Motives and needs are the second psychological factors
influencing you as an observer. There are differences between
you and your friend in what you select to perceive as a result
of differences in your motives and needs. You and your friend
attend to and organize the sensory input in ways that match
your respective needs. People who are hungry, thirst, or
sexually aroused are likely to pay attention to events in the
environment, which will satisfy these needs.
 2.3.2.From perception
Visual sensations, as discussed under sensation, provide the raw
materials that are to be organized into meaningful patterns,
shapes, forms, and concepts or ideas or form perception.
The meaningful shapes or patterns or ideas that are made perhaps
out of meaningless and discrete or pieces and bites of sensations
refer to form perception. To perceive forms (meaningful shapes
or patterns), you need to distinguish a figure (an object) from its
ground (or its surrounding). Let us look at this idea further.
Figure-Ground Perception
Figure-ground perception is the perception of objects
and forms of everyday experience as standing out from
a background. Pictures (figure) hang on a wall (ground),
words (figure) are seen on a page (ground), and melody
(figure) stands out from the repetitive chords in the
musical background (ground.
the pictures, words, and the melody are perceived as the figure,
while the wall, the page, and the chords are the ground. ability
to distinguish an object from its general background is basic to
all form perception. And gestalt psychologists stress that form
perception in an active, rather than a passive, process like
selectivity of perception. Hence, there can be a shift in you
perception of figure and ground such that the figure may
become the ground and vice versa. Factors that determine your
attention equally determine what should become the figure and
what should become the ground.
By the way, what helps you in general to separate the figure
from the general around in your visual perception?
This will take you to the second feature of form perception
called contours.
Contours in Form Perception
You are able to separate forms from the general ground only
because you can perceive contours. Contours are formed when
ever a marked difference occurs in the brightness or color of the
background. If you, for instance, look at a piece of paper that
varies continuously in brightness from white at one border to
black at the opposite border, you will perceive no contour.
The paper will appear uniform, and if you are asked to say where
the sheet stops being light and starts to become dark, you can
only guess. On the other hand, if the change is marked rather
than gradual-suppose several shades are skipped-you will see the
paper as divided in to two parts. In perceiving the division at the
place where the brightness gradient changes abruptly, you have
perceived a contour. In general, contours give shape to the
objects in our visual world because they mark one object off
from another or they mark an object off from the general ground.
When contours are disrupted visually, as in camouflage, objects
are difficult to distinguish from the background.
Organization in form Perception
When several objects are present in the visual field, we tend to
perceive them as organized into patterns or groupings. The
Gestalt psychologists studied such organization intensively in the
early part of this century. They emphasized that organized
perceptual experience has properties, which cannot be predicated
from a simple analysis of the components. In other words, Gestalt
psychologist said the whole is more than the sum of its parts. This
simply means that what is perceived has its own new properties,
properties that emerge from the organization, which takes place.
Organization in perception partially explains our perception of
complex patterns as unitary forms, or objects. We see objects
as objects only because grouping processes operate in
perception. Without them, the various objects and patterns we
perceive-a face on a television screen, a car a tree, a book-
would not ―hang together‖ as objects or patterns., they would
merely be so many disconnected sensations-dots, lines or
blotches, for example.
 some of the laws of perceptual organization are
 proximity, or nearness
 similarity
 Continuation
 closure
The laws of proximity says that items which are close together in space or
time tend to be perceived as belonging together or forming an organized
group.
Another organizing principle of perception is similarity.
Most people see one triangle formed by the dots with its apex at the top
and another triangle formed by the rings with its apex at the bottom.
They perceive triangle because similar items such as, the rings
and the dots, tend to be organized together. Otherwise, they
would see a hexagon or a six-pointed star, where all the dots
are the same.
Grouping according to similarity, however, does not always
occur. A figure is more easily seen as a six-pointed star than as
one figure composed of dots and another figure made up of
rings. In this case, similarity is competing with the organizing
principle of symmetry, or good figure.
Neither the circle nor the dots by themselves from a
symmetrical pattern. The law of good figure says that there is a
tendency to organize things to make a balanced or symmetrical
figure that includes all the parts. In this case, such a balanced
figure can be achieved only by using all the dots and rings to
perceive a six pointed star the law of good figure wins out over
the law of similarity because the rings by themselves or the
dots by themselves do not form symmetrical goods figures.
Still another principle or organization is continuation, the
tendency to perceive a line that starts in one way as continuing
in the same way.
For example, a line that starts out as a curve is seen as continuing
on smoothly curved course. A straight line is seen as continuing
on a straight course or, if it does change direction as forming an
angle rather than a curve. We see the dots as several curved and
straight lines. Even though the curved and straight lines cross and
have dots in common, it is only with an effort that we can
perceive a straight line suddenly becoming a curved line at one of
these functions. Finally, the law of closure makes our perceived
world or form more complete than the sensory stimulation that is
presented.
The law of closure refers to perceptual processes that organize
the perceived world by filling in gaps in stimulation.
 2.3.3.Depth perception
depth perception means the ability to judge the distance of
objects. Given that images on the retina are two dimensional,
how can we perceive depth? That is, how can we determine the
distance of objects (the distal stimulus) from the pattern of
stimulation on our retinas (the proximal stimulus)?
Depth perception depends on the use binocular cues and
monocular cues there are two kinds of binocular cues: retinal
disparity and convergence. The two kinds of binocular cues
require the interaction of both eyes. Retinal disparity is, the degree
of difference between the image of an object that are focused on the
two retinas.
The closer the object, the greater is the retinal disparity. To
demonstrate retinal disparity for yourself, point a fore finger
vertically between your eyes. Look at the finger with one eye
closed. Then look at it with the other closed. You will notice that
the background shifts as you view the scene with different views of
the same stimulus.
The view master device you might have used as a child creates
the impression of visual depth by presenting slightly different
image to the eyes at the same time mimicking retinal disparity.
Retinal disparity is greater when an object is near you than
when it is farther away from you. Certain cells in visual cortex
detect the degree of retinal disparity, which the brain uses to
estimate the distance of an object focused on the retinas.
The second binocular cue to depth is convergence, the degree
to which the eyes turn inward to focus on an object. As you
can confirm for yourself, the closer the objects are the greater
the convergence of the eyes.
Hold a fore finger vertically in front of your face and move it
toward your nose. You should notice an increase in muscular
muscle tension as your finger approaches your nose. Neurons
in the cerebral cortex translate the amount of muscle tension
into an estimate of the distance of your finger. Not that
convergence is associated with important everyday activities.
For example, drinking alcohol impairs depth perception by
disrupting the normal convergence of the eyes and using a
computer terminal for hours induce eye fatigue caused by
continues convergence.
Binocular cues require two eyes, whereas monocular cues
require only one.
This means that even people who have lost sight in one eye
may still have good depth perception. One monocular is
accommodation, which is the change in the shape of the lens
that lets you focus the image of an object on the retina. Neuron
in the rectum assume that the greater the accommodation of
the lens, the closer the object. But prolonged accommodation
can alter your depth perception.
For example, if you stare at a near object for a long time and
then look at a more distant object, the more distant object will
look farther away than it is. This is attributable to the brain‘s
overcompensation for the continuous accommodation of the
lens while it was focused on the near object.
A second monocular cue is motion parallax, the tendency to
perceive ourselves as passing objects faster when they are
closer to us than when they are farther away. You will notice
this when you drive on a rural road. You perceive yourself
passing nearby telephone poles faster than you are passing a
farmhouse.
The remaining monocular cues are called pictorial cues because
artists use them to create depth in their drawings and paintings.
Leonardo da Vinci formalized pictorial cues 500 year ago in
teaching his art students how to use them to make their paintings
look more realistic. He noted that an object that overlaps another
object will appear closer, a cue called interposition. Because your
psychology professor overlaps the blackboard, you know that she
or he is closer to you than the blackboard is. Comparing the
relative size of objects also provides a cue to their distance. If
two people are about the same height and one casts a smaller
image on your retina. You will perceive that person as farther
away.
You probably have noticed that parallel objects, such as railroad
tracks, seem to get closer as the further away (and farther apart
as they get closer). The pictorial cue, linear perspective, may
even have practical application. During world War II, naval
aviation cadets flying at night sometimes crashed into airplanes
ahead of them, apparently because of failure to judge the
distance of those plans. Taking advantage of linear perspective
solved this problem. Two taillights set a standard distance apart
replaced the traditional single taillight. As a result, when pilots
noticed that the taillights of an airplane appeared to move farther
apart, they realized that they were getting closer to it.
An object‘s elevation provides another cue to its distance.
Objects that are higher in your visual field seem to be farther
away. If you paint a picture, you create depth by placing more
distant objects higher on the Canvas.
Shading patterns provide cues to distance because areas that
are in shadow tend to recede, while areas that are in light tend
to stand out. Painters use shading to make balls, balloons, and
organs appear round. Aerial perspective depends on the clarity
of objects. Closer objects seem clearer than more distant ones.
A distant mountain will look hazier than a near one.
The final monocular cue, the texture gradient, affects depth
perception because the nearer an object, the more details we
can make out and the farther an object, the more details we can
make out, and the farther an object, the fewer details we can
make out. When you look across a field, you can see every
blade of grass near you, but only an expanse of green far away
from you. Even 7 month old infants respond to the texture
gradient cue. When presented with drawings that use the
texture gradient to make some objects appear to be in the
foreground and others in the background, infants will reach for
an object in the foreground.
 2.3.4.Perceptual Constancies
The image of a given object focused on your retina may vary in
size, shape, and brightness. Yet you will continue to perceive the
object as stable in size, shape, and brightness because of
perceptual constancy. This is adaptive, because it provides you
with a more visually stable world, making it easier for you to
function in it, as an object gets farther away from you, it produces
a smaller image on your retina. If you know the actual size of an
object, size constancy makes you interpret a change in its retinal
size as a change in its distance rather than a change in its size.
When you see a car a block away, it does not seem smaller
than one that is half a block away, even though the more
distant car produces a smaller image on your retina. Size
constancy can be disrupted by alcohol. In one study, young
adults drank alcohol and were then asked to estimate the size
of an object. They tended to underestimate its size. Disruption
of size constancy might be one way that alcohol intoxication
promotes automobile accidents.
Shape constancy assures that an object of known shape will
appear to maintain its normal shape regardless of the angle
from which you view it. Close this book and hold it at various
orientations relative to your line of sight.
Unless you look directly at the cover when it is on a plane
perpendicular to your line of vision, it will never cast a
rectangular image on your retinas, yet you will continue to
perceive it as rectangular. Shape constancy occurs because
your brain compensates for the slant of an object relative to
your line of sight.
Though the amount of light reflected from a given object can
vary, we perceive the object as having a constant brightness,
this is called brightness constancy. A white shirt appears
equally bright in dim light or bright light. But brightness
constancy is relative to other objects.
If you look at a white shirt in dim light in the presence on nonwhite
objects in the same light in the presence on nonwhite objects in the
same light, it will maintain its brightness. But if you look at the
white shirt by itself, perhaps by viewing a large area of it though a
hollow tube, it will appear dully in dim light and brighter in
sunlight.
2.3.5.Perceptual Illusion
In Edgar Allen Poe‘s ―The sphinx, a man looks out of his window
and is horrified by what he perceives to be a monstrous animal on a
distant mountain. He learns only later that the ―monster‖ was
actually an insect on his window. Because he perceived the animal
as far .
away, he assumed it was relatively large. And because he never
had seen such a creature, he assumed that it was a monster. This
shows how the misapplication of a visual cue, in this case
perceived size constancy, can produce a visual illusion. Visual
illusions provide clues to the processes involved in normal visual
perception. For example, from ancient times to modern times,
people have been mystified by the moon illusion illustrated in
Figure in which the moon appears larger when it is at the horizon
than when it is overhead. This is an illusion because the moon is
the same distance from us at the horizon as when it is overhead.
Thus, the retinal image it produces is the same size when it is
at the horizon as when it is overhead. Perhaps Franz Muller-
Lyer, developed the most widely studied illusion. Note in Fig
2/5 (A) that the vertical line at the bottom appears longer than
the one at the top. But if you take a ruler and measure the
lines, you will find that they are equal in length. Figs 5.33 (B
to D ) are variants of the Muller-Lyer illusion.
Though no explanation has achieved universal acceptance, a
favored one relies on size constancy and the resemblance of
the figure on the right to the inside corner of a room and the
resemblance of the figure on the left to the outside corner of a
building.
Given that the lines project images of equal length on the retina, the
lines that appear farther away will be perceived as longer. Because
an inside corner of a room appears farther away than an outside
corner of a building, the line on the right appears farther and,
therefore, longer than the line on the left.
In general, perception is the act of knowing through sensation. But,
some people appear to have an ability to know other people,
objects, and events without any sensory contact an experience
called extra sensory perception (ESP) or paranormal ability. Have
you ever heard or experienced such phenomena? What specific
type? Do you believe it is true? Do you think psychologists and
scientists believe in ESP? Why?
 Summary

The act of knowing involves the complementary processes of sensation and

perception. As discussed earlier, sensation is normally our first encounter (with the
reality) in which receptor cells in the sensory organs recode the physical energy or
stimulations in to a neural message a phenomenon called transduction.
In trying to make sense out of the surrounding, humans respond, in general, to
certain stimulation ignoring others (selectivity of perceptions). Such selective
perception divides the surrounding into a focus and a margin with the possibility that
what is in the focus may shift into the margin and vice versa. Items of the
surrounding which get into the focus are more likely to be: i. Bigger in size and
brighter in intensity, ii. Frequently occurring to the senses, iii. Novel enough to
creating contrast with the one in the perceptual field and iv. Moving rather than
stagnating.
The psychological states of the perceiver (i.e. set or expectancy
and needs) are also crucial in the selection process together with
these stimulus characteristics.
The focus stands out very clearly (or becomes a figure) from the
margin/background (or the figure) because there is a sharp
contrast between the two (i.e., there are contours). This figure-
ground perception is called form perception because of contours.
Organizing perception into a figure and a ground may take the
law of closure, proximity, similarity, symmetry or continuation.
Form perception applies only for a two-dimensional world.
But we are living in a three dimensional world where by
perception of distance is a matter of necessity. Such perception
involves recognizing how distant objects are from the pattern
of stimulation on our retinas.
Perception of depth depends on binocular cues (or information
from both eyes). While binocular cues rely inertial disparity
and convergence, monocular cues involve accommodation.
Motion parallax, and such pictorial cues as interposition, aerial
perspective, linear perspective, texture gradient, elevation, and
shading patterns.
In any case, this world is stable and known because our
perception of it remains constant despite changes in the
observer‘s location, distance and perspective. In fact, there are
some exceptions to this in which perceptual illusions may
occur, providing otherwise.