Introduction to Psychology

Unit 4 – Sensation and Perception

The processes of sensation and perception overlap.

Sensation – the detection and basic sensory experience of environmental stimuli
Perception – the process of integrating, organizing, and interpreting sensations in meaningful ways

THE BASIC STEPS OF SENSATION AND PERCEPTION

An individual senses (sensation). The receptor cells decode the signals and delivers it to the brain. The
brain processes the message and become neuro signals/information in which the individual receives and
understands (perception).

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SENSATION

Sensory receptors – specialized cells unique to each sense organ that respond to a particular form of
sensory stimulation
Sensory adaptation – decline in sensitivity to a constant stimulus
Transduction – process by which a form of physical energy is converted into a coded neural signal that
can be processed by the nervous system

1. VISION: WHAT WE SEE

⮚ THE NATURE OF LIGHT

● Light is electromagnetic energy that can be described as waves and by its wavelength.

● Various types of electromagnetic energy differ in wavelength, which is the distance from one
wave peak to another
● The eye perceives the incoming information and is transferred to the optic nerve and switches
side (left to right and vice versa) through the optic chiasm. The information is delivered to the
occipital lobe.

⮚ THE HUMAN VISUAL SYSTEM

Cornea
● Clear membrane that covers the front of the eye

● Does most of the focusing of the image

Pupil and Iris

● Colored part of the eye (iris) and the hold formed by the iris (pupil)

● Controls the amount of light entering the eye

● Aids in controlling the clarity of the image (smaller pupils, clearer image)

Lens

● Transparent structure behind the pupil

● Focuses the image on the retina

● Changes the shape to focus on far to near targets through the processes of accommodation

Rods and Cones

Cones
o Responsible for best acuity
o Responsible for color vision
o Active at daylight or photopic light levels

Rods
o Responsible for night or scotopic vision
o Have relatively poor acuity
o Take approximately 30 minutes to adapt to lowest light levels

Retina

● Thin, light-sensitive membrane located at back of the eye; contains sensory receptors for
visions
● Rods and cones: sensory receptor cells that respond to light; called photoreceptors

● When exposed to light, rods and cones undergo chemical reactions that result in neural
signals
 ⮚ THE BLIND SPOT – The optic disc where ganglion nerve cells leave the retina; contains no
photoreceptors; brain fills in the blind spot with the surrounding patterns; the movement of the
eye also helps fill in the blind spot

⮚ COLOR VISION

● Our visual system interprets differences in the wavelength of light as color.

● Rods are color blind, but cones allow us to see different colors.

● The difference occurs because we have only one type of rod but three types of cones.

● ROYGBIV
o Wavelengths of about 400 nanometers are only perceived as violet.
o Wavelengths of about 700 nanometers are perceived as red.
o In between are orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo.

⮚ TRICHROMATIC THEORY

● Mixing only three primary lights can usually create the perceptual experience of all possible
colors.
o Three different types of photoreceptors
o Three kinds of cones have been found in the retina
● Theory explains the most common forms of color blindness but does not allow good
explanations of afterimages and the unique color yellow

⮚ OPPONENT-PROCESS THEORY

● Color vision is the product of opposing color receptors.

● This generates three systems: red – green, blue – yellow, and black – white.

● When one member of a color pair is stimulated, the other member is inhibited,

2. HEARING: WHAT WE HEAR

⮚ FROM VIBRATION TO SOUND

● Sound waves are produced by the rhythmic vibration of air molecules

● Auditory perception occurs when sound waves interact with the structures of the ear
o Amplitude – the amount of volume of the wavelength
o Frequency – how frequently each waves appear
⮚ CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUND

● Loudness: the intensity (or amplitude) of a sound wave, measured in decibels

● Amplitude: the intensity (or amount) of energy of a wave, reflected in the height of the wave

● Decibel: the unit of measurement for loudness

● Frequency: the rate of vibration, or the number of sound waves per second – measured in
Hertz (Hz)
● Pitch: relative highness or lowness of a sound, determined by the frequency of a sound wave

● Timbre: distinctive quality of a sound, determined by the complexity of the sound wave

⮚ HOW WE HEAR

● Outer Ear: collects sound waves; consists of pinna, ear canal, and eardrum (tympanic
membrane)
● Middle Ear: amplifies sound waves; consists of three small bones (ossicles): hammer, anvil,
and stirrup
● Inner Ear: where sound is transduced into neural impulses; consists of cochlea and
semicircular canals

⮚ STRUCTURES OF THE INNER EAR

● Cochlea: coiled, fluid-filled inner-ear structure that contains basilar membrane and hair cells

● Basilar membrane: membrane within cochlea that contains hair cells

● Hair cells: hair-like sensory receptors for sound; are embedded in the basilar membrane of
cochlea; they get brittle and damaged as you age, especially by loud noises

⮚ DISTINGUISHING PITCH

● Both frequency theory and place theory are involved in explaining our discrimination of
pitch.
o Frequency theory – basilar membrane vibrates at the same frequency as the sound
wave
▪ Helps explain our discrimination of frequencies lower than 500Hz
o Place theory – different frequencies cause larger vibrations at different locations
along the basilar membrane
 ▪ Helps explain our discrimination of higher-pitched sounds. For intermediate
frequencies or midrange pitches, both place and frequency are involved.

● THE CHEMICAL AND BODY SENSES

o Chemical senses
▪ Olfaction

▪ Gustation
o Body senses
▪ Touch and temperate

▪ Pain

▪ Kinesthetic location of body)

▪ Vestibular (balance)

3. THE OLFACTORY SYSTEM

● Airborne molecules 🡪 inhaled through nose or mouth 🡪 travel to the top of nasal cavity and
stimulate olfactory receptors 🡪 receptor cells communicate neural messages to olfactory bulb
located in olfactory cortex of the brain

4. SENSE OF TASTE OR GUSTATION

● Taste is just one aspect of flavor which involves several sensations, including the aroma,
temperature, texture, and appearance of food.

5. SKIN AND BODY SENSES

● Skin is the largest and heaviest sense organ containing main kinds of sensory receptors.

● Some specialized receptors respond to one stimulus, others respond to more than one.
o Sensory receptors distributed unevenly among different body areas
o Pacinian corpuscle – located beneath skin and sends neural message to brain when
stimulated; sensory adaptation occurs when pressure is constant

⮚ FAST AND SLOW PAIN SYSTEMS; A-DELTA FIBERS AND C FIBERS

● A-delta fibers
o Myelinated A-delta fibers represent the fast pain system
o Transmit the sharp intense, but show-lived pain of immediate injury
o Pathway = thalamus to somatosensory cortex
 ● C fibers
o Smaller, unmyelinated C fibers represent the slow pain system
o Transmit longer-lasting throbbing, burning pain of injury
o Pathway = hypothalamus and thalamus and then to the limbic system (amygdala)

⮚ GATE-CONTROL THEORY OF PAIN

● According to the theory, pain experience is interpreted by the brain which sends signals down
the spinal cord.
o Open pain gateways – pain experienced or intensified
o Close pain gateways – pain reduced
● Pain pathways become more responsive through sensitization

⮚ MOVEMENT, POSITIONS, AND BALANCE

● Kinesthetic sense: sense of location and position of body parts in relation to one another

● Vestibular sense: sense of balance or equilibrium, by responding to changes in gravity,

motion, and body position.
● Proprioceptors: sensory receptors, located in the muscles and joints that provide information
about body position and movement

⮚ PERCEPTION: TWO MAJOR PROCESSES IN PERCEPTUAL PROCESSING

● Bottom-up processing: emphasizes the importance of sensory receptors in detecting the

basic features of a stimulus; moves from part to whole; also called data-driven processing
● Top-down processing: emphasizes importance of observer’s cognitive processes in arriving
at meaningful perceptions; moves from whole to part; also called conceptually driven
processing

● EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION (ESP) – detection of information by some means other than

through normal processes of sensation
● PARAPSYCHOLOGY – scientific investigation of claims of various paranormal phenomena

PERCEPTION: WHAT IS SHAPE?

How are perceptions organized so that an object is seen as separate from other subjects?

● Gestalt Psychology
 o Founded by German psychologist Max Wertheirmer in the early 1900s (Wertheimer,
1923)
o Emphasized that humans perceive whole objects or figures (gestalts) rather than isolated
bits and pieces of sensory information
o General prince of law of Pragnanz, the law of simplicity
⮚ FIGURE-GROUND RELATIONSHIP

● Gestalt principle is stating that a perception is automatically separated into the figure which
clearly stands out, from its less distinct background, the ground.
● Ability to separate a scene into figure and ground is a psychological accomplishment.

⮚ GESTALT PSYCHOLOGISTS
Studied how the perception of visual elements becomes organized into patterns, shapes and
forms; identified several laws or principles to follow in grouping elements together to arrive at
the perception of forms, shapes, and figures
o Law of Similarity
o Law of Closure
o Law of Good Continuation
o Law of Proximity

⮚ DEPTH PERCEPTION AND CUES

Seeing in three dimensions is an important perceptual ability.

o Depth perception is difficult because humans only have access to two-dimensional
images.
How do humans see a 3-D world using only the 2-D retinal images?
o Visual systems can use depth cues that appear in the retinal images.

● Types of Cues:
o Monocular: depth cues that appear in the image in either the left or right eye
o Binocular: depth cues that involve comparing the left and right eye images