Sensations and Perception

1. Sensations and Perception

2. … is the process that detects stimuli from one’s body or environment. Sensation …

3. Perception… … is the process that organizes sensations into meaningful patterns.

4. Visual sensation lets you detect the black marks on this page; visual perception lets you organize the black marks into letters and words. Sensation vs Perception

6. Types of stimuli • Chemical stimuli: taste, smell • Mechanical stimuli: pressure, sound, touch, vibration, gravity • Electromagnetic stimuli: light, heat

7. Receptors as Transducers • Smell: olfactory receptors in the epithelium of the nose • Taste: taste receptor cells on the tongue • Touch: touch and temperature nerve endings in the skin • Hearing: hair cells in the organ of Corti in the inner ear • Vision: rods and cones in the retina of the eye • Balance: hair cells in the vestibular apparatus of the inner ear

8. Absolute Threshold … … is the minimum amount of stimulation that a person can detect.

9. Absolute Threshold

10. Signal-Detection Theory … … assumes that the detection of a stimulus depends on both its intensity and the physical and psychological state of the individual.

11. Signal-Detection Theory … • A hit is a correct report of the presence of a target stimulus. • Amiss is a failure to report the presence of a target stimulus that is, in fact, present. • A false alarm is a report of the presence of a target stimulus that is not, in fact, present. • A correct rejection is a correct report of the absence of a target stimulus.

12. About 25 million olfactory receptors make up the bulk of olfactoryepithelium. Smell (olfaction)

13. Smell • It warns us of dangers, such as fire, deadly gases, or spoiled food, and lets us enjoy the pleasant odors of food, nature, and other people.

14. Smell • Researchers have been especially interested in the effects of secretions called pheromones on the sexual behavior of animals.

15. Humans possess the ability to distinguish five kinds of taste: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and the taste of certain amino acids, like glutamate and some nucleotides. Taste (gustation)

16. Somatic Sensory System(skin senses or body senses) • Touch (mechanoreceptors): flutter, vibration, pressure • Proprioception (deep mechanoreceptors): limb position and movement • Pain (nociception): noxious stimuli, mechanical, thermal and chemical • Thermal (temperature): hot and cold

17. The Kinesthetic Sense… … informs you of the position of your joints, the tension in your muscles, and the movement of your arms and legs.

18. The Vestibular Sense … … depends on organs in the inner ear, informs you of your position in space, helping you maintain your balance and orientation.

19. Sense of Pain • The sense of pain protects us from injury or even death. • The most influential theory of pain is the gate-control theory formulated by psychologist Ronald Melzack and biologist Patrick Wall.

20. Hearing (audition) • Sound is composed of two physical qualities: the frequency of the air vibrations that we hear as pitch, and intensity (or amplitude) of the vibrations that we hear as loudness. • Timbre is a combination of these two qualities that defines the quality of sound.

21. It provides a rich interpretation of the environment, including 3D, color, and animation. For humans and many vertebrates, the sense of vision is highly developed. Vision

22. Trichromatic Theory Opponent-Process Theory Color vision

23. Structure of the Eye • Cornea - the round, transparent area that allows light to pass into the eye. • Lens - the transparent structure that focuses light onto the retina • Retina - inner membrane of the eye that receives information about light using rods and cones • Pupil - opening at the center of the iris which controls the amount of light entering the eye • Rods & Cones - many more rods (approximately 120 million) than cones (approx 6.4 million)

24. What causes you to see or hear things that seem to fool your senses? Visual Illusions

25. Visual Illusions

26. Ponzo Illusion

27. Grid Illusion

28. Optical Illusion

29. Choose the right variant • From a Psychological perspective, what is wrong with this statement: "When I bite into a York peppermint patty, I get the sensation of swimming in a cool mountain stream on a hot summer day"? a) peppermint patties aren't all that good b) eating can't produce other types of sensations c) sensation is a passive process and the statement describes an active process d) peppermint inhibits tactile processes

30. Choose the right variant 2. In the human eye, there are approximately 120 million ______, which are the visual receptors that are vital for night vision, while there are approximately 6.4 million _____ that help us see color.a) cornea; pupilb) pupil; corneac) cones; rodsd) rods; cones

31. Choose the right variant 3. Which theory of color states that our receptors for color are capable of receiving information from pairs of colors (e.g., red-green), but can only handle one color from each pair at a time? a)Trichromatic theoryb) Young-Helmholtz theoryc) Opponent Process theoryd) Color...what's color?

32. Choose the right variant 4. One might say that Michael Jordan has a highly developed _____, considering he seems to have such an incredible awareness of his body parts, their positions in space, and such great balance.a) vestibular senseb) kinesthetic sensec) olfactory sensed) ego

33. Choose the right variant 5. If you have ever been looking at something that appeared out of focus and tried to shift your focus slightly by moving your head, you were actually attempting to move the image onto the _____ at the back of your eye.a) foveab) rodsc) conesd) cornea

34. Choose the right variant 6. Scientists believe that many animals secrete some type of odorous chemicals that influence the behaviors of other animals. These chemicals, known as _____, may be particularly important in mating and the whole attraction-reproductive process.a) neurotransmittersb) hormonesc) pheromonesd) alkaloids

35. Choose the right variant 7. The process of simply getting information about sensory stimuli into the body is known as _____, but converting that information into something meaningful is known as_____.A) perception; sensationb) sensation; perceptionc) olfaction; perceptiond) olfaction; sensation

36. Choose the right variant 8. In order to identify something as tasting "bitter", the substance we are tasting must touch what area of the tongue?a) sidesb) tipc) underneathd) back

37. Choose the right variant 9. _________ regulates the amount of light entering the eye.a) retinab) pupilc) irisd) visual agnosia

38. Choose the right variant 10. It typically takes about _____ minutes for the eye to achieve maximum adjustment to a dark environment. a) 2 minutesb) 15 minutesc) 30 minutesd) 40 minutes

39. Choose the right variant 11. A person who is color blind is referred to as a ___________.A) trichromaticb) tripartitec) subtractived) dichromat

40. Choose the right variant 12. Perceptions of color depend mostly on _________.a) purityb) amplitudec) wavelengthsd) none of the above