SENSATION AND

PERCEPTION
CHAPTER TWO
 Chapter Overview
• Before anything else, psychological life begins with the
activity of knowing what is happening around. Sensation
and perception are the first important dimensions of this
intelligent life.
• That is, they are starting points for all of your other
psychological processes.
• They supply the data you use for learning and
remembering, thinking and problem solving,
communicating with others, and experiencing emotions
and for being aware of yourself.
• Without access to the environment through sensation
and perception, you would be like a person in a coma
devoid of any thoughts or feelings. 2
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

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Brainstorming questions
• Have you heard of sayings like
• “you watch but you don’t see”;
• “you hear but you don’t listen”,
• “you touch but you don’t grasp…”
• What do these statements suggest to you?
• Which one do you think refers to sensation and
which one refers to perception?

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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 of 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.

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The process of Sensation and Perception

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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 whereby 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.
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Can you mention examples showing the difference
between sensation and perception?
• Consider, for example, the black marks and letters
in this slide.
• Visual sensation lets you detect the black marks.
• Visual perception lets you organize the black
marks into letters and works.

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2.2.The sensory laws: Sensory
thresholds and sensory adaption.
• Brainstorming questions
• How much intense must a sound be for you to detect it?
• How much changes in light intensity must occur for you
to notice it?

• There are certain sensory laws that explain how

sensation works.
• Sensory threshold and sensory adaptation are the
two general laws of sensation.
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 2.2.1 Sensory threshold
• Sensory threshold is the minimum point of intensity a sound
can be detected.
• There are two laws of sensory threshold: The law of absolute
threshold and the law of difference threshold.
1. The absolute threshold
• The minimum amount of stimulation a person can detect is
called the absolute threshold, or Limen.
• In scientific terms, it is “the smallest intensity of a stimulus
that must be present for the stimulus to be detected”.
• For example, the number of milliliters of water that must be in the
palm of your hand before you can feel wetness or weight would be
your absolute threshold for the sensation of feeling water.
• For example, a cup of coffee would require a certain amount of
sugar before you could detect a sweet taste.
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• Psychologists operationally define the absolute
threshold as the minimum level of stimulation that can
be detected 50 percent of the time when a stimulus is
presented over and over again.
• Thus, if you were presented with a low intensity sound 30
times and detected it 15 times, that level of intensity would
be your absolute threshold for that stimulus.

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 Cont.
• The absolute threshold is also affected by factors other
than the intensity of the stimulus;
• The detection of a stimulus depends on both its intensity
and the physical and psychological state of the
individual.
• One of the most important psychological factors is the
response bias- how ready the person is to report the
presence of a particular stimulus.
• 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
(attacked), so you would be more likely to perceive the
sound of footsteps on a neighborhood you believe to be
dangerous than in a neighbor-hood you believe to be
safe.
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2. The difference threshold
• The minimum amount of change that can be detected
• Like the absolute threshold, the difference threshold for a
particular sensory experience varies from person to person and
from occasion to occasion.
• Therefore, psychologists formally define the difference threshold as the
minimum change in stimulation that can be detected 50 percent of the
time by a given person.
• This difference in threshold is called the just noticeable
difference (JND). The amount of change in intensity of
stimulation needed to produce a JND is a constant fraction of the
original stimulus. This became known as Weber‘s law.
• For example, because the JND for weight is about 2% and you held a 50
ounce (1.64k.g) for weight you would notice a change only if there was
at least one ounce (0.028k.g or 28.34g) change in it.
• But a person holding a 100 ounce weight would require the addition or
subtraction of at least 2 ounce to notice a change.
• Research findings indicate the weber‘s law holds better for stimuli of
moderate intensity than stimuli of extremely how or high intensity.13
 2.2.2. Sensory Adaptation
• Given that each of your senses is constantly bombarded by
stimulation, why do you notice only certain stimuli?
• 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 (very unpleasant smell) 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.
• Of course, you will not adapt completely to extremely intense
sensations, such as severe pain or freezing cold.
• This is adaptive, because to ignore such stimuli might be harmful or even
fatal.
• Sensory adaptation lets you detect potentially important change in
your environment while ignoring unchanging aspects of it.
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Sensory deprivation and sensory overload
• Human brain requires a minimum amount of
sensory stimulation in order to function normally.
• If too little stimulation (sensory deprivation) is can
be bad for you, so can too much (sensory
overload), because it can lead to fatigue and
mental confusion.
• This may help to explain why people who live alone
often keep the radio or television set running
continuously and why prolonged solitary
confinement is used as a form of punishment or
even torture.

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2.3.Perception
• Perception - the method by which the sensations experienced at any
given moment are interpreted and organized in some meaningful
fashion.
• 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 in put 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.
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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.
• You may be aware of items in the marginal field but only vaguely
or partially.
• The fact that you perceive how cold your feet are, and how
noise the crowd is when the play is finished or time is
called illustrates another characteristics of attention, that
it is constantly shifting.
• Attention shifts constantly.
• What is in the focus of your attention one moment may be in
margin; and what is in the margin may become in your focus. 17
Factors determine 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. Size and
intensity, repetition, novelty (or newness), and
movement.
1. Size and Intensity
• 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. 18
 External factors…
2. Repetition
• You are more likely to attend to stimuli that repeatedly
or frequently occur in your perceptual field.
• a short-lived stimulus will not catch our attention as
easily as one, which is repeated.
• 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.
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3. Novelty:
• a sudden or unexpected stimulus is likely to catch
our attention more easily than one we have been
expecting or that we have encountered.
• Novelty:- 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 a special
attention as a guest, why first-born children get
more attention from parents etc.

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4. Movement
• something, which moves, is more likely to attract
attention than something stationary.
• 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.
• This is because 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.

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• 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.

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 Internal or Psychological factors
• 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.
• 1. 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.
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2. 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.
• What you choose to hear or perceive is determined largely by
your current level of satisfaction or deprivation
• For example when you are hungry, you are much more likely to notice
TV commercials for burger, or pizza than those for cars or detergent.
• In a similar way you will find that when you are lonely, your
perceptions will be so affected that it will seem that everyone is part of
a happy couple except you.
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 Reflection
• Dear student, reflect on the following questions?
• 1. Assume that you are in your room with your friend listening to music.
But your friend is rather listening to people talking outside.
• Why do you think you and your friend differed while you both were in the same
place? Size/intensity
• 2. Look at the symbol 13 in the following two raw of symbols: a raw of
letters and a raw of numbers.
-A 13 C D E F G
- 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

2.1 What does the symbol 13 refer to in the first row? B

2.2 What does the same symbol refer to in the second row? 13
2.3 Why did you give a different meaning to the same symbol in the two
rows? Set/expected
2.4. Which factor of attention getting is/are explaining these
phenomena? Internal factor 25
2.3.2.From perception
• Visual sensations 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).

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1. Figure-Ground Perception
• It 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.
• The 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.
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28
Do you see an
old lady or a
young lady?

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30
Do you see a
rabbit or a
duck?

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The laws of perceptual organization?
1. Proximity, or nearness.
• 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.

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2. Similarity.
• Similarity - the tendency to perceive things that look
similar to each other as being part of the same group.
• 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.

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3. Continuation,
• the tendency to perceive things as simply as possible with a
continuous pattern rather than with a complex, broken-up
pattern.
• 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.

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5. Closure
• 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

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 Figure and Ground
 Proximity
 Seeing 3 pair of lines in
A.
 Similarity
 Seeing columns of
orange and red dots in
B.
 Continuity
 Seeing lines that connect
1 to 2 and 3 to 4 in C.
 Closure
 Seeing a horse in D.
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2.3.3.Depth perception
• If we live in a two-dimensional world, form perception
would be sufficient. But because we live in a three-
dimensional world, we have evolved depth perception-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.
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 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
forefinger 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.
• 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
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Convergence

• The second binocular cue to depth is 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 forefinger vertically in front of your face and move it
toward your nose. You should notice an increase in ocular
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.
• Note 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. 39
• the degree to which they turn in to focus on a close object.
When you focus on a distant object, your eyes are looking in
almost parallel directions. When you focus on something close,
your eyes turn in, and you sense the tension of your eye muscles.
The more the muscles pull, the closer the object must be.
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 Monocular cues
• Monocular cues enable a person to judge depth and distance
with just one eye
• This means that even people who have lost sight in one eye may still
have good depth perception.
1. 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.
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 Monocular cues…
2. 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.
3. 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.
• Interposition: an object that overlaps another object will appear closer, a
cue called interposition. Because your psychology lecturer overlaps the
blackboard, you know that he is closer to you than the blackboard is.
• Relative size:
• 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.

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4. linear perspective
• As parallel lines stretch out toward the horizon, they
come closer and closer together. Examine the road. At the
bottom of the photo (close to the viewer), the edges of
the road are far apart; at greater distances they come
together.
• 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. 43
• We judge depth and distance
in a photograph using
monocular cues (those that
would work even with just one
eye):
• (a) Closer objects occupy more
space on the retina (or in the
photograph) than do distant
objects of the same type.
• (b) Nearer objects show more
detail.
• (c) Closer objects overlap
certain distant objects.
• (d) Objects in the foreground
look sharper than objects do
on the horizon.
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Linear Perspective: Railroad tracks that seem to join together in the distance

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Monocular cues…
• Elevation: An object‘s elevation provides another cue
to its distance. Objects that are higher in your visual
field seem to be farther away.
• Shading patterns provide cues to distance because
areas that are in shadow tend to recede (gradually
diminish), while areas that are in light tend to stand
out.
• Aerial perspective depends on the clarity of objects.
Closer objects seem clearer than more distant ones.
• A distant mountain will look hazier (vague) than a near
one.
• Aerial perspective - the haziness that surrounds
objects that are farther away from the viewer,
causing the distance to be perceived as greater.
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 Monocular cue…..

• Texture gradient, affects depth perception because the

nearer an object, the more details we can make out
and the farther an object, the fewer details we can
make out.
• the tendency for textured surfaces to appear to become
smaller and finer as distance from the viewer increases.
• 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.
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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.
• 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. 48
Size constancy
• 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.
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Psychology: A Journey, Second Edition, Dennis Coon
Chapter 4

Size
constancy
link

50
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.

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Shape constancy

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brightness constancy
• 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.
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 2.3.5.Perceptual Illusion:
The Deceptions of Perceptions

• This shows how the misapplication of a visual cue, in

this case perceived size constancy, can produce a visual
illusion.
• Visual illusions: Physical stimuli that consistently
produce errors in perception.
• For example, from ancient times to modern times,
people have been mystified by the moon illusion 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.
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 LO 3.16 Visual illusions

Perceptual Illusions
• Müller-Lyer illusion - illusion of line length that is distorted
by inward-turning or outward-turning corners on the ends
of the lines, causing lines of equal length to appear to be
different.
• Moon illusion – the moon on the horizon appears to be
larger than the moon in the sky.
• Apparent distance hypothesis
• Illusions of Motion:
• autokinetic effect - a small, stationary light in a darkened room will
appear to move or drift because there are no surrounding cues to
indicate that the light is not moving.
• stroboscopic motion - seen in motion pictures, in which a rapid
series of still pictures will appear to be in motion.
• phi phenomenon – lights turned on in a sequence appear to move.
Menu
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Menu
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When the moon is near the horizon, we do not
see it by itself and perceptual constancy leads
us to take into account a misleading sense of
distance.

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Ame’s room illusion

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3.3.8 Interpretation
• This is the final stage of perception. The process of
interpretation is also influenced by several factors.
Example:
• Beliefs: What we hold to be true about the world
can affect the interpretation of ambiguous sensory
signals.
• Emotions: Our emotions or moods also influence
our interpretations of sensory information.
• Expectations: Previous experiences often affect
how we perceive the world. The tendency to
perceive what to expect is called perceptual set.
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• Extrasensory Perception (ESP) - claim of perception
that occurs without the use of normal sensory
channels such as sight, hearing, touch, taste, or
smell.
• Telepathy - claimed ability to read another
person’s thoughts, or mind reading.
• Clairvoyance - supposed ability to “see” things
that are not actually present.
• Precognition - supposed ability to know
something in advance of its occurrence or to
predict a future event.
• Parapsychology - the study of ESP, ghosts, and other
subjects that do not normally fall into the realm of
ordinary psychology.

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