Sensation and Perception Overview

Sensation and Perception

• Sensation is the process of detecting, transducing, and sending stimuli to the brain
• Perception is the interpretation of raw sensory input by the brain
• Perception is influenced by current sensory input, past experiences, and current expectations
• The study of how we perceive sensory stimuli based on their physical characteristics is called psychophysics
• Absolute threshold: the lowest level of a stimulus needed for the nervous system to detect it 50% of the time
• Just Noticeable Difference (JND): the smallest change in the intensity of a stimulus that can be detected
• Weber's Law: a constant proportional relationship between the JND and the original intensity of a stimulus
• Sensory adaptation: the decrease in responsiveness to a stimulus over time
• Signal detection theory: how stimuli are detected under different conditions
• Parts of a trial: Hit, Miss, False Alarm, Correct Rejection
• Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR): the ratio of the strength of a signal to background noise
• Perceived stimuli are influenced by current experience, past experience, current expectations and the way our brain processes information
• Perceptual set: expectations influencing a perception
• Perceptual constancy: perceptual stimuli that are consistent across varied conditions
• Parallel Processing: enables us to simultaneously attend to several sensory inputs
• Bottom-up Processing: building up a complete perception from smaller parts
• Top-down Processing: conceptual perceptions influenced by prior learning and belief
• Motion Blindness: neurological disorder where one cannot perceive motion
• Visual Agnosia: failure to see a visual stimulus not associated with poor intelligence or memory issues, often due to brain damage

The Other Senses

• Students should read pages 137-143 (hearing), 144-148 (body senses), and 148-154 (chemical senses) of their textbook
• The material is covered on the second midterm

Police Lineups

• Sequential Method: accuracy rate is 30%
• Simultaneous Method: accuracy rate is 39%

Explore the fascinating processes of sensation and perception in this quiz. Dive into concepts such as absolute threshold, just noticeable difference, and psychophysics. Understand how our brain interprets sensory stimuli and the factors influencing our perceptions.