Sensation and Perception

Sensation: your window to the world

Perception: interpreting what comes
in your window.
 Sensation and Perception
• the process through which the
SENSATION senses pick p visual, auditory, and
other sensory stimuli and transmit
them to the brain

PERCEPTION • the process by which sensory

information is actively organized
and interpreted by the brain
PROCESS OF SENSATION

 ABSOLUTE THRESHOLD
The minimum amount of sensory
stimulation that can be detected
50% of the time
 SENSORY RECEPTORS
Specialized cells in the sense organs that detect and
respond to sensory stimuli – light, sound, odors – and
transduce (convert) the stimuli into neural impulses
Provide the essential link between the physical sensory
world and the brain
 TRANSDUCTION
Process where the receptors change or convert the
sensory stimulation in neural impulses
 SENSORY ADAPTATION
The process of becoming less sensitive to an unchanging
sensory stimulus over time
Allows you to shift your attention is most important at
any given moment
So where do vision and hearing
(& the other senses) happen?
 The Brain!
 The physical energy in the
environment is detected
by the eyes, ears, etc. but
we can’t see, hear, etc.
until the brain interprets
them—i.e., makes sense
of them. So in a way, we
see, hear, smell, etc. in our
brains!
Vision  Our most
dominating sense.
 Vision would not
exist without the
presence of light
 Light is electro-
magnetic
radiation that
travels in the
form of waves
Learning about the eye…

Cornea – transparent membrane covering the front of the eye

(protective) – the light enters the eye through the cornea
Pupil – small adjustable opening – regulates the amount of light
entering the eye
 Iris – muscle which surrounds the pupil and controls the size
of the pupil; at largest dilation (opening), pupil is 17 times
larger than the smallest dilation (opening).
Lens – focuses incoming rays on back surface of the eye (retina) - elastic,
muscles stretch or thicken (thus changing the curvature of the lens) to bend
the light at the right angle (so light is focused on retina, depending upon
distance of object) this is called accommodation.
The Retina
 Network of neurons
on rear surface
inside the eye

 Turning the
lights into images
Sensory Receptor Cells
 There are two types of sensory receptor cells
which are located on the retina
 Rods

 Cones

 Rods enable us to see black and white,

 Cones enable us to see color and details
Vision
 Opponent-process theory
 The theory that three classes of cells increase their firing
rate to signal one color and decrease their firing rate to
signal the opposing color (red/green, yellow/blue,
white/black)

• Afterimage
– After you have stared at one color in an opponent-process
pair (red/green, yellow/blue, black/white), the cell
responding to that color tires and the opponent cell
begins to fire, producing the afterimage
Vision
Color Vision

Two Major Theories

 Trichromatic Theory or
Young-Helmholtz Theory
Three types of cones:
 Red
 Blue
 Green
 These three types of
cones can make
millions of
combinations of
colors.
 Does not explain
afterimages or color
blindness well.
Opponent-Process theory

The sensory
receptors come in
pairs.
 Red/Green
 Yellow/Blue
 Black/White
 If one color is
stimulated, the
other is inhibited.
Vision
 Hue
 The property of light commonly referred to as color,
determined primarily by the wavelength of light reflected
from a surface
 Saturation
 The degree to which light waves producing a color are of
the same wavelength; the purity of a color
 Brightness
 The dimension of visual sensation that is dependent on
the intensity of light reflected from a surface and that
corresponds to the amplitude of the light wave
FACTS-TRIVIA
 The eye muscles are the most active
muscles in the whole body
 Chewing gum while peeling onions will
keep you away from crying
 Men can read smaller print that women,
however, women can hear well
 You can’t sneeze with your eyes open
 Everyone is color-blind at birth
 An ostrich’s eye is bigger that its brain.
The Ear
Hearing
 Audition
 The sensation of hearing; the process of hearing

 The stimulus for hearing comes in the form of sound

waves produced by vibrations or movements of the
sound source which has 3 attributes:
 Frequency – vibration and pitch of the sound

 Intensity – amplitude (loudness) of the sound

 Timbre – tonal quality of the sound

Hearing

 Timbre
 The distinctive quality of a sound that distinguishes it
from other sounds of the same pitch and loudness
 Human voices vary in timbre, providing us with a way of
recognizing individuals when we can’t see their faces
 Timbres also vary from one instrument to another
Hearing
 Hearing
 Smallest bones are found in the ear
 Sound is made up of molecules vibrating in
patterns called waves.
 Sound Waves: Rhythmic movement of air
molecules
 Pitch: Higher or lower tone of a sound
 Loudness: Sound intensity
More Parts of the Ear

 Inner ear
 The innermost portion of the ear, containing the cochlea,
the vestibular sacs, and the semicircular canals
 Cochlea
 The snail-shaped, fluid-filled chamber in the inner ear that
contains the hair cells (the sound receptors)
 Organ of Corti: Center part of the cochlea containing hair
cells, canals, and membranes
 Hair cells
 Sensory receptors for hearing, found in the cochlea
 Parts of the Ear
 Pinna: Visible, external part of the ear
 Tympanic Membrane: Eardrum
 Auditory Ossicles: Three small bones that
vibrate; link eardrum with the cochlea
 Malleus aka hammer

 Incus aka anvil

 Stapes aka stirrup

Hearing Loss
 Conductive Hearing Loss: Poor transfer of sounds
from tympanic membrane to inner ear
 Compensate with amplifier (hearing aid)

 Sensorineural Hearing Loss: Caused by damage to

inner ear hair cells or auditory nerve
 Hearing aids useless in these cases, since

auditory messages cannot reach the brain

 Cochlear Implant: Electronic device that

stimulates auditory nerves

 Noise Induced Hearing Loss
 Stimulation Deafness: Damage caused by
exposing hair cells to excessively loud
sounds
 Typical at rock concerts

 By age 65, 40% of hair cells are gone

 Vestibular System
 Otolith Organs: Sensitive to movement,
acceleration, and gravity
 Semicircular Canals: Fluid-filled tubes in
ears that are sensory organs for balance
 Crista: “Float” that detects movement in
semicircular canals
 Vestibular System and Motion
Sickness
 Sensory Conflict Theory: Motion sickness occurs
because vestibular system sensations do not match
sensations from the eyes and body
 After spinning and stopping, fluid in

semicircular canals is still spinning, but head is

not
 Mismatch leads to sickness

 Medications, relaxation, and lying down might

help
 Touch
 Receptors located in
our skin.
 Cutaneous or Skin
Sensation
Skin Senses
 Four Skin Sensory Functions
 THERMAL EXPERIENCES
Coldness
Warmth
 Reaction to warmth is longer to cold – people
are more sensitive to cold because warmth has
to penetrate into the inner tissues of the skin
 Threshold for cold is less that the threshold for
warmth – greater change in temperature is
needed to sense heat unlike in cold, the stimulus
needs to reach only the outer portion
 Adaptation to warmth is more rapid because
people are already warm inside
 Anything that affects blood supply affects
sensitivity.
Skin Senses
 Skin
 The largest organ of your body
 Performs many important biological functions while also
providing much of what is known as sensual pleasure
 Tactile
 Pertaining to the sense of touch
 Information that is conveyed to the brain when an object
touches and depresses the skin, stimulating one or more
of the several distinct types of receptors found in the
nerve endings
 Four Skin Sensory Functions
 FACTUAL EXPERIENCES
Pain
Pressure
 Pain
 Warning System: Pain carried by large
nerve fibers; sharp, bright, fast pain that
tells you body damage may be occurring
(e.g., knife cut)
 Reminding System: Small Nerve Fibers:
Slower, nagging, aching, widespread; gets
worse if stimulus is repeated; reminds
system that body has been injured
Skin Senses

 Pain
 Motivates us to tend to injuries, to restrict activity, and to
seek medical help
 Teaches us to avoid pain-producing circumstances in the
future
 Chronic pain
 Pain that persists for three months or more
 Three common types
 Low-back
 Headache
 Arthritis
 Smell and Taste
 Olfaction: The sensation of smell; the
process of smelling
 Olfactory bulbs
 Two matchstick-sized structures

above the nasal cavities, where smell

sensations first register in the brain
 Anosmia: Defective sense of smell
Smell and Taste
Smell and Taste
 Gustation
 The sensation of taste
 Five basic tastes
 Sweet
 Sour
 Salty
 Bitter
 Umami

Triggered by the substance glutamate (monosodium glutamate is
commercial product)
Smell and Taste
Spatial Orientation Senses
 Kinesthetic sense
 The sense providing information about relative position
and movement of body parts
 Gives the position of body parts in relation to each other
and the movement of the entire body and/or its parts
 Vestibular sense
 The sense that provides information about the body’s
movement and orientation in space through sensory
receptors in the semicircular canals and the vestibular
sacs, which detect changes in the movement and
orientation of the head
 “ WE DON’T SEE THINGS AS

THEY ARE, WE SEE THINGS AS

WE ARE.”
 Perception

“ The study of perception is concerned with identifying the process

through which we interpret and organize sensory information to
produce our conscious experience of objects and object relationship.”

“ Perception is the process of receiving information about and making sense

of the world around us. It involves deciding which information to notice,
how to categorize this information and how to interpret it within the
framework of existing knowledge.

“ A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory

impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.

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 The Perceptual Process

1. Sensation 3. Organization
 An individual’s The process of
ability to detect placing selected
stimuli in the perceptual stimuli
immediate into a framework
environment. for “storage.”
2. Selection
4. Translation
 The process a  The stage of the
person uses to
perceptual process
eliminate some of
at which stimuli 47
 Perceptual Process
Selecting Stimuli
External factors : Nature,
Location,Size,contrast,
Receiving Stimuli Movement,repetition,similarity

(External & Internal) Internal factors : Learning,

needs, age,Interest,

Interpreting Organizing
Attribution ,Stereotyping, Figure Background ,
Halo Effect, Projection Perceptual Grouping
( similarity, proximity,
closure, continuity)

Response
Covert: Attitudes ,
Motivation,
Feeling
Overt: Behavior
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Factors influencing perception

A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes

distort perception. These factors can reside in the

perceiver, in the object or target being perceived or in

the context of the situation in which the perception is

made.

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 Factors influencing Perception
Factors in the perceiver
• Attitudes
• Motives
• Interests
• Experience
• Expectations
Factors in the situation
• Time
• Work Setting Perception
• Social Setting
Factors in the Target
• Intensity
• Movement
• Sounds
• Size
• Repetition
• Change in Stimulus
• Proximity
• Similarity 50
Perceptual organization

 It is the process by which we group outside stimuli into

recognizable and identifiable patterns and whole objects.

 Certain factors are considered to be important contributors

on assembling, organizing and categorizing information in
the human brain. These are

- Figure ground
- Perceptual grouping

51
 Figure-Ground Illustration
Field-ground
differentiation
 The tendency to

distinguish
and focus on a stimulus
that
is classified as figure as

opposed to background.

52
PERCEPTUAL GROUPING
 Our tendency to group several individual stimuli into a
meaningful and recognizable pattern.

 It is very basic in nature and largely it seems to be inborn.

 Some factors underlying grouping are

-continuity
-closure
-proximity
-similarity

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Person Perception: Making Judgments
About Others

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 Shortcuts in judging others

 Selective Perception :

People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their

interests, background, experience and attitudes.

 Halo Effect :

Drawing a general impressions about an individual on the basis

of a single characteristics.

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 Contrast Effect :

Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that are effected by comparisons with

other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same

characteristics.

 Projection :

Attributing one's own characteristics to other people.

 Stereotyping :

Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that

persons belongs.

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Extrasensory Perception
ESP refers to the
sensing of things
beyond the range of
your standard senses.
 Clairvoyance:
seeing things
beyond your
natural sight
Clairaudience: hearing
things beyond your
natural hearing
Touching, tasting
and smelling things
beyond your natural
range is gross.

Most people
don’t advertise
these abilities.
There is also
precognition (literally
‘knowing
beforehand’)

People with
precognition claim to
be able to predict the
future.
Extra Sensory Perception
 Telepathy
 Transfer one’s thoughts to another or read

someone’s thoughts
 Precognition
 Predict future

 Clairvoyance
 To perceive events or objects out of sight

 Psychokinesis
 Move objects without touching – mind over

matter.
Psychics have existed for many
thousands of years and still operate
today, despite there being zero
evidence for their powers.
Ancient psychics were often referred to as
“soothsayers” and they used various methods to
see into the future:

Throwing bones
Looking at bird’s flight patterns
Examining animal entrails
Astrology
Tarot cards
Numerology