Sensation and Perception

Our Sensational Senses

 Defining sensation and perception
 The riddle of separate senses
 Measuring the senses
 Sensory adaptation
 Sensory overload
Defining Sensation and Perception
 Sensation
 The detection of physical energy emitted or
reflected by physical objects.
 It occurs when energy in the external
environment or the body stimulates receptors
in the sense organs.
 Perception
 The process by which the brain organizes and
interprets sensory information.
Ambiguous Figure
 Colored surface can
be either the outside
front surface or the
inside back surface
 Cannot
simultaneously be
both
 Brain can interpret
the ambiguous cues
two different ways
 The Riddle of Separate Sensations
 Sense receptors
 Specialized cells that
convert physical
energy in the
environment or the
body to electrical
energy that can be
transmitted as nerve
impulses to the
brain.
Sensation & Perception Processes
Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies
 Different sensory modalities exist because
signals received by the sense organs
stimulate different nerve pathways leading
to different areas of the brain.
 Synthesia
 A condition in which stimulation of one sense
also evokes another.
Measuring Senses
 Absolute threshold
 Difference threshold
 Signal-detection theory
Absolute Threshold
 The smallest quantity of physical energy that can
be reliably detected by an observer.
Absolute Sensory Thresholds
 Vision:
 A single candle flame from 30 miles on a dark, clear
night
 Hearing:
 The tick of a watch from 20 feet in total quiet
 Smell:
 1 drop of perfume in a 6-room apartment
 Touch:
 The wing of a bee on your cheek, dropped from 1 cm
 Taste:
 1 tsp. Sugar in 2 gal. water
Difference Threshold
 The smallest difference in stimulation that
can be reliably detected by an observer
when two stimuli are compared;
 Also called Just Noticeable Difference
(JND).
Signal-Detection Theory
 A psychophysical theory that divides the detection of
a sensory signal into a sensory process and a decision
process.
Stimulus is Stimulus is
Present Absent
Response: Hit False Alarm
“Present”
Response: Miss Correct
“Absent” Rejection
Sensory Adaptation and Deprivation
 Adaptation
 The reduction or disappearance of sensory
responsiveness when stimulation is
unchanging or repetitious.
 Prevents us from having to continuously
respond to unimportant information.
 Deprivation
 The absence of normal levels of sensory
stimulation.
Sensory Overload
 Overstimulation of the senses.
 Can use selective attention to reduce
sensory overload.
 Selective attention
 The focusing of attention on selected aspects of
the environment and the blocking out of others.
Vision
 What we see
 An eye on the world
 Why the visual system is not a camera
 How we see colours
 Constructing the visual world
What We See
 Hue
 Visual experience specified by colour names
and related to the wavelength of light.
 Brightness
 Lightness and luminance; the visual experience
related to the amount of light emitted from or
reflected by an object.
 Saturation
 Vividness or purity of colour; the visual
experience related to the complexity of light
waves.
What We See
 Hue
 Brightness
 Saturation
 An Eye on the World
 Cornea
 Protects eye and bends
light toward lens.
 Lens
 Focuses on objects by
changing shape.
 Iris
 Controls amount of light
that gets into eye.
 Pupil
 Widens or dilates to let
in more light.
An Eye on the World
 Retina
 Neural tissue lining the back of the eyeball’s
interior, which contains the receptors for vision.
 Rods
 Visual receptors that respond to dim light.
 Cones
 Visual receptors involved in colour vision. Most
humans have 3 types of cones.
The Structures of the Retina
Why the Visual System is not a Camera
 Much visual processing is done in the
brain.
 Some cortical cells respond to lines in
specific orientations (e.g. horizontal).
 Other cells in the cortex respond to other
shapes (e.g., bulls-eyes, spirals, faces).
 Feature-detectors
 Cells in the visual cortex that are sensitive to
specific features of the environment.
Hubel & Wiesel’s Experiment
How We See Colours
 Trichromatic theory
 Opponent process theory
Trichromatic Theory
 Young (1802) & von
Helmholtz (1852)
both proposed that the
eye detects 3 primary
colours:
 red, blue, & green
 All other colours can
be derived by
combining these
three.
Opponent-Process Theory
 A competing theory of
colour vision, which
assumes that the visual
system treats pairs of
colours as opposing or
antagonistic.
 Opponent-Process
cells are inhibited by a
colour, and have a
burst of activity when
it is removed.
Afterimages
Test of Colour Deficiency
Constructing the Visual World
 Form perception
 Depth and distance perception
 Visual constancies: When seeing is
believing
 Visual illusions: When seeing is misleading
Form Perception
 Gestalt principles describe the brain’s
organization of sensory building blocks
into meaningful units and patterns.
 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.
Depth and Distance Perception
 Binocular Cues:
 Visual cues to depth or distance that require the
use of both eyes.
 Convergence: Turning inward of the eyes,
which occurs when they focus on a nearby
object.
 Retinal Disparity: The slight difference in
lateral separation between two objects as seen
by the left eye and the right eye.
Depth and Distance Perception
 Monocular Cues:
 Visual cues to depth or distance that can be
used by one eye alone.
The Ames Room
 A specially-built room
that makes people seem
to change size as they
move around in it
 The room is not a
rectangle, as viewers
assume it is
 A single peephole
prevents using binocular
depth cues
 Visual Constancies
 The accurate perception of objects as stable
or unchanged despite changes in the
sensory patterns they produce.
 Shape constancy
 Location constancy
 Size constancy
 Brightness constancy
 Colour constancy
Shape Constancy
 Even though these images cast shadows of
different shapes, we still see the quarter as round
Visual
Illusions

 Illusions are valuable in understanding perception

because they are systematic errors.
 Illusions provide hints about perceptual strategies.
 In the Muller-Lyer illusion (above) we tend to
perceive the line on the right as slightly longer than
the one on the left.
The Ponzo Illusion
 Linear perspective
provides context
 Side lines seem to
converge
 Top line seems farther
away
 But the retinal
images of the red
lines are equal!
Fooling the Eye

 The cats in (a) are the same size

 The diagonal lines in (b) are parallel
 You can create a “floating fingertip frankfurter” by
holding hands as shown, 5-10” in front of face.
Hearing
 What we hear
 An ear on the world
 Constructing the auditory world
What We Hear
 Loudness
 The dimension of auditory experience related to
the intensity of a pressure wave.
 Pitch
 The dimension of auditory experience related to
the frequency of a pressure wave.
 Timbre (pronounced “TAM-bur”)
 The distinguishing quality of sound; the
dimension of auditory experience related to the
complexity of the pressure wave.
An Ear on the World
Auditory Localization
 Sounds from different
directions are not identical
as they arrive at left and
right ears
 Loudness
 Timing
 Phase
 The brain calculates a
sound’s location by using
these differences.
Other Senses
 Taste: savoury sensations
 Smell: The sense of scents
 Senses of the skin
 The mystery of pain
 The environment within
Taste: Savoury Sensations
 Papillae
 Knoblike elevations on the tongue, containing the
taste buds (Singular: papilla).
 Taste buds
 Nests of taste-receptor cells.
Taste Buds
 Photograph of tongue
surface (top),
magnified 75 times.
 10,000 taste buds line
the tongue and
mouth.
 Taste receptors are
down inside the
“bud”
 Children have more
taste buds than adults.
Four Tastes
 Four basic tastes
 Salty, sour, bitter and sweet.
 Different people have different tastes based
on:
 Genetics
 Culture
 Learning
 Food attractiveness
Smell: The Sense of Scents

 Airborne chemical molecules enter the nose and

circulate through the nasal cavity.
 Vapors can also enter through the mouth and pass into
nasal cavity.
 Receptors on the roof of the nasal cavity detect these
molecules.
Olfactory System
Sensitivity to Touch
Gate-Control Theory of Pain
 Experience of pain
depends (in part) on
whether the pain
impulse gets past
neurological “gate” in
the spinal cord and
thus reaches the brain.
 Neuromatrix Theory of Pain
 Theory that the
matrix of neurons in
the brain is capable of
generating pain (and
other sensations) in
the absence of signals
from sensory nerves.
The Environment Within
 Kinesthesis
 The sense of body position and movement of
body parts; also called kinesthesia.
 Equilibrium
 The sense of balance.
 Semicircular Canals
 Sense organs in the inner ear, which
contribute to equilibrium by responding to
rotation of the head.
Perceptual Powers: Origins and
Influences
 Inborn abilities
 Critical periods
 Psychological and cultural Influences on
perception
 The Visual
 Glass surface, with
checkerboard underneath at Cliff
different heights
 Visual illusion of a cliff
 Baby can’t fall
 Mom stands across the gap
 Babies show increased
attention over deep side at
age 2 months, but aren’t
afraid until about the age
they can crawl (Gibson &
Walk, 1960)
The Visual Cliff
Critical Periods
 If infants miss out on
experiences during a crucial
period of time, perception
will be impaired.
 When adults who have been
blind since birth have
vision restored, they may
not see well
 Other senses such has
hearing may be influenced
similarly.
Psychological and Cultural Influences
on Perception
 We are more likely to perceive something when
we need it.
 What we believe can affect what we perceive.
 Emotions, such as fear, can influence perceptions
of sensory information.
 Expectations based on our previous experiences
influence how we perceive the world.
 Perceptual Set
 A habitual way of perceiving, based on expectations.
 All are influenced by our culture.
Perceptual Set

 What you see in the centre figures depends on the

order in which you look at the figures:
 If you scan from the left, see an old woman
 If you scan from the right, see a woman’s figure
Context Effects
 The same physical
stimulus can be
interpreted differently
 We use other cues in
the situation to
resolve ambiguities
 Is this the letter B or
the number 13?
Puzzles of Perception
 Subliminal Perception
 Extrasensory Perception: Reality or
Illusion?
Subliminal Perception
 Perceiving without awareness
 visual stimuli can affect your behaviour even
when you are unaware that you saw it
 nonconscious processing also occurs in
memory, thinking, and decision making
 these effects are often small, however, and
difficult to demonstrate and work best with
simple stimuli
Subliminal Perception
 Perception versus Persuasion
 there is no empirical research to support
popular notions that subliminal persuasion
has any effect on a person’s behaviour
 persuasion works best when messages, in the
form of advertising or self-help tapes, are
presented above-threshold, or at a
supraliminal level
Extrasensory Perception
 Extrasensory Perception (ESP):
 The ability to perceive something without
ordinary sensory information
 This has not been scientifically demonstrated
 Three types of ESP:
 Telepathy – Mind-to-mind communication
 Clairvoyance – Perception of remote events
 Precognition – Ability to see future events
Parapsychology
 The study of purported psychic phenomena
such as ESP and mental telepathy.
 Persinger suggests that psychic phenomena
are related to signs of temporal lobe
epilepsy in otherwise neurologically
normal individuals.
 Most ESP studies produce negative
findings and are not easily replicated.
Parapsychology

 J. B. Rhine conducted many experiments on ESP

using stimuli such as these.
 Rhine believed that his evidence supported the
existence of ESP, but his findings were flawed.