Sensation & Perception: Understanding the Senses and Information Processing

1. Chapter 4: Sensation & Perception “All knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.” – Leonardo Da Vinci Vision Hearing Smell Taste Touch

2. Definitions Sense organs:eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, & internal body organs • Sensation • process of detecting, converting, and transmitting raw sensory information from the external and internal environments to the brain (transduction) • Perception • process of selecting, organizing and interpreting sensory information • enables us to recognize meaningful objects and events Happens in the brain!

3. Processing Ex: you have ingredients and must put them together to make something edible • Bottom-Up (parts to whole) • Information processing beginning “at the bottom” with raw sensory data that are sent “up” to the brain for higher level analysis • Data driven processing that moves from the parts to the whole • Top-Down (whole to parts) • Information processing starting “at the top” with higher level cognitive processes (such as expectations and knowledge) and then “working down” • Conceptually driven processing that moves from the whole to the parts Ex: you have ingredients and a recipe & picture of a completed cake and you must recreate the cake

4. Top-Down Processing example Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

5. Top down/ bottom up Fruit or face Guitar player or old people

6. Sensation- Thresholds Ex: listen to headphones and indicate the earliest you hear a tone • Absolute Threshold • minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus • usually defined as the stimulus needed for detection 50% of the time • Difference Threshold • minimum difference between two stimuli that a subject can detect 50% of the time • just noticeable difference (JND) • increases with magnitude Ex: listen to headphones and indicate when you hear a change in volume of sound Easier to tell the difference between 100 & 101Hz than 1000 & 1001Hz

7. 100 Percentage of correct detections 75 50 Subliminal stimuli 25 0 Low Absolute threshold Medium Intensity of stimulus Sensation- Thresholds • When stimuli are detectable less than 50% of the time (below one’s absolute threshold) they are “subliminal”.

8. Sensation- Thresholds • Weber’s Law- to perceive a difference between two stimuli, they must differ by a constant proportion • light intensity- 8% • weight- 2% • tone frequency- 0.3% • Sensory Adaptation: diminished sensitivity with constant stimulation - receptors higher up in sensory system get tired and fire less frequently Apply it! Come up with 3 examples

9. Sensation- Thresholds • Signal Detection Theory • predicts how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise) • assumes that there is no single absolute threshold • High expectations- false positives • Low expectations- false negatives • detection depends partly on person’s -experience -motivation -expectations -level of fatigue

10. Great amplitude (bright colors, loud sounds) Short wavelength=high frequency (bluish colors, high-pitched sounds) Long wavelength=low frequency (reddish colors, low-pitched sounds) Small amplitude (dull colors, soft sounds) Vision: Physical Properties of Waves

11. Perception of light and sound • Transduction: conversion of one form of energy to another • Wavelength: Hue (color) and pitch • Amplitude: brightness and loudness • Purity of wavelength: saturation of color and timbre for sound

12. Vision: Spectrum of Electromagnetic Energy

13. Vision: Parts of the Eye • Cornea: transparent covering on the front of the eye • Fovea: central point of focus on the back of the eye • Pupil:adjustable opening in the center of the eye • Iris: a ring of muscle the forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening • Lens:transparent structure behind pupil that changes shape to focus images on the retina Accommodation: change in shape of lens focus near objects • Retina • Layers of neurons on inner surface of eye • light sensitive • contains rods and cones • beginning of visual information processing Blind Spot: area of retina where optic nerve leaves back of eye

14. Vision: Parts of the Eye

15. Receptors in the Human Eye Cones Rods Number 6 million 120 million Periphery Location in retina Center Low High Sensitivity in dim light Color sensitive? Yes No Retina’s Reaction to Light Receptors • Rods • Located in periphery of retina • detect black, white and gray • twilight or low light Cones • near center of retina (fovea) • fine detail and color vision • daylight or well-lit conditions

16. Pathways from the Eyes to the Visual Cortex

17. Vision • Acuity: the sharpness of vision • Nearsightedness • nearby objects seen more clearly • lens focuses image of distant objects in front of retina • Farsightedness • faraway objects seen more clearly • lens focuses near objects behind retina Farsighted Nearsighted Normal Vision Vision Vision

18. Color-Deficient Vision • People who suffer red-green blindness have trouble perceiving the number within the design

19. Visual Information Processing • Trichromatic (three color) Theory • Young and Helmholtz • The eye contains three different types of cones capable of responding to various wavelengths of light • red • green • blue

20. Visual Information Processing Opponent-Process Theory: opposing retinal processes enable color vision “ON” “OFF” redgreen greenred blueyellow yellowblue blackwhite whiteblack

21. The 2 Theories

22. Visual Perception: Gestalt- the whole is greater than the sum of its parts • Gestalt Principles (gestalt = an organized whole. We tend to integrate pieces of info. into meaningful wholes) • Proximity • Simplicity (law of good form) • Connectedness • Closure • Continuity • Similarity • Phi Phenom

23. x • Depth Perception: The Visual Cliff • Binocular Cues: clues about distance using two eyes • Retinal Disparity: the fact that the right and left eyes see slightly different views of the object • Convergence: the degree to which the two eyes must converge to focus on the object • Monocular Cues: clues about distance based on the image in either eye • Linear Perspective: parallel lines converge in the distance • Relative Size: if two objects are the same, the larger one is seen as closer • Interposition: the nearer object overlaps the object farther in the distance • Texture Gradient: textures are coarser the closer they are • Light and shadow • Height in plane

24. Pictorial depth cues

25. Audition (Hearing) • Audition • the sense of hearing • Frequency • the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time • Pitch • a tone’s highness or lowness • depends on frequency The Stimulus • Vibrations of sound waves • Amplitude: loudness • Wavelength: pitch • Purity: timbre

27. Audition: The Ear • Outer Ear (pinna) • Auditory Canal • Eardrum • Middle Ear • hammer • anvil • stirrup • Inner Ear • oval window • cochlea • basilar membrane • hair cells (cilia)

28. Audition: Pitch Perception • Place Theory (high pitch) • the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea’s membrane is stimulated • Frequency Theory (low pitch) • the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch

29. Touch • Numerous types of receptors lie in varying depths in the skin • Four Basic Skin Senses • Hot • Cold • Pressure • Pain

30. Amplitude required for perception relative to 20-29 year-old group 1 time 10 times 100 times 1000 times 32 64 128 256 512 1024 2048 4096 8192 16384 Frequency of tone in waves per second Low Pitch High Audition: Loss • Conduction Hearing Loss • hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea • Nerve Hearing Loss • hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea’s receptor cells or to the auditory nerve Older people tend to hear low frequencies well but suffer hearing loss for high frequencies

31. Taste • The Stimuli: chemical substances that are soluble • The Anatomy: taste buds act as the receptors for taste (about every two weeks) • Perception of taste & flavor • Numerous factors can impact the flavor of food (Ex: temperature of the food, texture, prior condition of the mouth, health state of the organism, smell) • Taste Sensations • sweet • sour • salty • bitter • Sensory Interaction • the principle that one sense may influence another • as when the smell of food influences its taste

32. The Tongue

33. Smell

34. Smell (Olfaction) The Stimuli: chemical substances that are soluble The Anatomy: receptors are olfactory cilia which lie on the roof of the nasal passage and sinus Sense DOES NOT get filtered by thalamus Taste and smell interact to produce flavor

35. How We Locate Sounds • Localization of Sound • Sound is heard in the nearest ear first • Sound is heard loudest in the nearest ear

36. Perceptual Constancies: Size,Shape,Brightness, Color

37. Visual Perception: Constancies • Perceptual Constancies: the ability to experience a constant perception even when what is reflected on the retina changes • Color: an object will be perceived as the same color even if the color reflected on the retina changes (ex: when an object is placed in the shade) • Size: an object will be perceived as the same size even if the size reflected on the retina changes (ex: dog running toward you is not seen as growing in size) • Shape: an object will be perceived as the same shape even if the shape reflected on the retina changes (ex: door opening toward you is still perceived as rectangular)

38. Cell’s responses Stimulus Visual Information Processing • Feature Detectors • neurons in the visual cortex respond to specific features • shape • angle • movement • Parallel Processing • simultaneous processing of several dimensions through multiple pathways • color • motion • form • depth

39. Touch • Skin Sensations • pressure • only skin sensation with identifiable receptors • hot • cold • pain

40. Pain • Gate-Control Theory • Theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological “gate” that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain

41. Body Position and Movement • Kinesthesis • the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts • Vestibular Sense • the sense of body movement and body’s position relative to gravity • including the sense of balance • Semicircular canals in ears

42. Parapsychology • Paranormal- beyond normal • telepathy, ESP, out of body experience…