Sensation and Sensory Systems

Sensation

• Sensation involves inputting sensory information
• This is the process of receiving, converting, and transmitting information from the outside world

Sensory Systems / Organs

• Vision, hearing, smell (olfaction), taste (gustation), and vestibular sense (balance) are all sensory systems
• Kinethesis involves body movement
• Touch includes pressure, pain and temperature

Vision

• Visual receptors are located on the retina as rods for night vision, and cones for color vision
• Eyes capture light and focus it on visual receptors
• Visual receptors convert light energy to neural impulses sent to the brain

Hearing

• Audition (hearing) occurs via sound waves, which result from rapid changes in air pressure caused by vibrating objects
• Receptors are located in the inner ear (cochlea) as tiny hair cells
• These hair cells convert sound energy to neural impulses

Smell and Taste

• Olfaction (smell) receptors are located at the top of the nasal cavity
• Gustation (taste) receptors are taste buds on the tongue
• Four basic tastes are: sweet, salty, sour and bitter

Body Senses

• Vestibular sense (sense of balance) results from receptors in the inner ear
• Kinethesis (body posture, orientation, and body movement) results from receptors in muscles, joints, and tendons
• Touch (skin senses) includes touch (pressure, temperature and pain)

Processing

• Sensory reduction involves filtering and analyzing sensations before messages are sent to the brain
• Transduction is the process of converting receptor energy into neural impulses for brain comprehension
• Adaptation is a decreased sensory response to continuous stimuli, preventing continuous response to unimportant information

Approximate thresholds for 5 senses

• Vision can detect a candle flame at 30 miles on a dark clear night
• Hearing can identify a ticking watch at 20 ft under quiet conditions
• Taste can notice 1 tsp of sugar in 2 gallons of water
• Smell can sense one drop of perfume diffused throughout 3 rooms
• Touch can feel a wing of a fly falling on cheek from 1 cm

Difference Threshold

• The smallest difference in stimulation is reliably detected by an observer when two stimuli are compared
• This is also called Just Noticeable Difference (JND)

Sensory Overload

• This occurs from overstimulation of the senses.
• Selective attention can reduce sensory overload
  • It focuses attention on selected aspects of the environment and blocks others out

Perception

• Perception involves "...a constructive process by which we go beyond the stimuli that are presented to us to construct a meaningful situation"

Gestalt Principles

• Rules summarize how people tend to organize bits and pieces of information into meaningful wholes
• People tend to organize stimuli into "wholes"

Gestalt Psychology: Form

• Principles include: figure ground, proximity, similarity, continuity, and closure

Gestalt Psychology

• Gestalt psychologists focus on grouping objects together
• People innately look at things in groups instead of as isolated elements
• Proximity involves grouping objects that are close together as part of the same group
• Similarity involves perceiving objects similar in appearance as part of the same group
• Continuity involves objects that form a continuous form perceived as same group
• Closure is like top-down processing, where people fill in gaps if they can recognize it

Monocular Cues

• Only one eye is needed to use these cues.
• These are used in art classes to show depth.
• Include linear perspective, interposition, relative size, texture gradient and shadowing

Binocular Cues

• Both eyes are needed to use these cues
• Retinal Disparity involves the differences in images between the eyes
• These become greater as an object comes closer
• Convergence involves eyes coming together to keep focused on an approaching object

Factors Affecting Perception

• Factors in the perceiver: attitudes, motives, interests, experience, expectations
• Factors in the situation: Time, Work Setting, Social Setting
• Factors in the target: Novelty, Motion, Sounds, Size, Background, Proximity, Similarity

Subliminal Perception

• Stimuli occur below the threshold of conscious awareness
• Has a weak, if any effect on behavior

Attention

• Attention is a cognitive process
• Involves directing and maintaining awareness of stimuli detected by the senses
• The information collected is then used to make decisions and choose responses

Dimensions of Attention

• Width of attention (broad or narrow) includes:
  • Broad focus, which attends to a large number of stimuli at the same time
  • Narrow focus: e.g., golfer lining up a putt
• Direction of attention (internal or external) relates to:
  • Internal focus, which is directed inward on thoughts and feelings e.g., monitor your body's responses and mental skills.
  • External focus that is directed to events happening in the environment e.g., evaluating playing conditions.

Automatic Processing

• Performing a skill without conscious attention thought
• Happens fast and holistically
• Occurs below the conscious level
• Not attention demanding (e.g., can dribble in traffic while looking for an open player to pass to)

Attentional Capacity

• People have a limited "attentional capacity."
• Controlled Processing occurs
  • When athletes consciously focus on performing the sport skill e.g., focusing on the mechanics of how to execute a tennis serve -When processing is slow, conscious, deliberate, step-by-step and attention-demanding

Selective Attention

• Process of attending to some information coming into our senses and ignoring or screening out other information
• Experts are able to select the correct cues from countless irrelevant and competing stimuli (e.g., information to focus on when returning serve)

Concentration

• The ability to sustain attention on selected stimuli for a period of time
• Can be easily broken by: external distractions, own thoughts and feelings, planned "psych out" strategies, intense energy demands of intense concentration
• Roadblocks involve factors that interfere with quieting or "parking” the mind, include: excessive thinking, stress, pain, and fatigue

Concentration Improvement Guidelines

• Learn to manage stress
• Recognize energy demands of concentration
• Practice concentrating
• Experience the skill
• Direct attention away from distracting thoughts and feelings
• Think non-judgmentally

Memory

• Process in which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved (Recovered)
• There are three main stages in the formation and retrieval of memory: Encoding or registration, storage, and retrieval

Processes of Memory

• Memory receives information from the senses, organizes and alters it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the information from storage
• Encoding involves converting sensory information into a usable form for brain storage systems
• Storage involves holding onto information for some period of time
• Retrieval involves getting information that is in storage into a form that can be used

Three Types of Memory

• Sensory memory refers to an initial process that receives and holds environmental information in its raw form for a brief period of time
• Short-term memory (working-memory), holds a limited amount of information, an average of seven items - 2 to 30 seconds
• Long-term memory stores almost unlimited amounts of information over long periods of time

Amnesia

• Loss of memory is described as forgetfulness, or a medical disorder
• Retrograde amnesia is the loss of memory back from the point of some injury or trauma backwards
• Anterograde amnesia is the loss of memory from the point of injury or trauma forward / inability to form new long-term memories ("senile dementia")
• Infantile amnesia is when a person is unable to retrieve memories from much before age 3

Ways to Improve Memory

• Whole Learning: Studying an entire package of information at once, like a poem
• Part Learning: Studying subparts of a larger body of information (like text chapters)
• Recitation: Summarizing aloud while learning
• Rehearsal: Reviewing information mentally (silently)
• Selection: Selecting most important concepts to memorize
• Spaced Practice: Alternating study sessions with brief rest periods
• Massed Practice: Studying for long periods without rest periods. Lack of sleep decreases retention/sleep aids consolidation and hunger decreases retention

Thinking

• Can refer to the act of producing thoughts or the process of producing thoughts
• Thought can refer to the ideas or arrangements of ideas that result from thinking, the act of producing thoughts, or the process of producing thoughts
• Also refers to a process that involves knowing, understanding, remembering and communicating

Types of Thinking

• Critical thinking assesses the worth and validity of something existent. Involves precise, persistent, objective analysis
• Implementation thinking organizes ideas and plans in a way that they will be effectively carried out
• Conceptual thinking consists of the ability to find connections or patterns between abstract ideas and then piece them together to form a complete picture
• Innovative thinking involves generating new ideas or new ways of approaching things to create possibilities and opportunities
• Intuitive thinking takes what you may sense or perceive to be true

Theories and Models of Thinking

• Behaviorist Theory says Behaviorists view thinking as something that produces a measureable change in an individual's actions/ reacts to external stimuli
• Pavlov's experiment with dogs is an example of behaviorist theory
• Cognitive Theory says Piaget and Gagne argue that thinking and learning are internal mental actions that take place in the brain. Include sensory perception, processing of information, applying and combining information, and memory
• Humanist Theory says the humanist model, the purpose of thinking is to fulfill an individual's potential/acts of thinking and learning are always personal, not institutional
• Also known as "whole child" theory, humanists advise developing a self-motivated, autonomous individual who can think and learn on his own

Cognition

• Derived from the Latin verb cognosco (con 'with' + gnōsco 'know')
• The mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment
• Known as through perception, reasoning, or intuition; knowledge
• In science, it is a group of mental processes, including attention, memory, producing and comprehending language, learning, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making

Cognition

• The mind is a complex information processing machine
• Hardware is the brain
• Software is mental images / representations
• Information input to the mind comes via bottom-up processing from the sensory system
• Processed by top down processing via prestored information in the memory
• Output is in the form of behavior

Levels of Cognition

• Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognitive Domain identified six levels within the cognitive domain
• Range from simple recall or recognition of facts/lowest level through increasingly complex and abstract mental levels, to the highest order is classified as evaluation
  • Knowledge is defined as remembering previously learned material. The lowest level of learning outcomes in the cognitive domain
  • Comprehension is defined as the ability to grasp the meaning of material
  • Application refers to the ability to use learned material in new and concrete situations
• Evaluation judges the value of material for a given purpose, in order to be based on definite criteria

The steps involved in decision-making/problem-solving:

• Define the problem / decision to be made
• Consider all the possible options/alternatives to solve the problem or decision
• Write down all the positives and negatives for each option/alternative
• Weight all the positives and negatives for each option
• Select the best alternative
• Implement the solution
• Monitor progress
• Review and learn from your experience