Chapter 4:
Sensation and perception
How We Sense and Perceive the World
Processes and purposes:
● Senses → take info from environment and allow us to form a perception about the world
● Sensations → process of receiving stimulus energy from the external environment and
transforming it into a neural energy
● Perceptions → process of organizing and interpreting sensory info so that it makes
sense
● Bottom-up & Top-down processing
○ Bottom-up Processing
■ sensory receptors register info from the external environment & send it up
to the brain for interpretation
■ when does this happen? → first-time (novel) info
○ Top-Down Processing (Perception)
■ begins with cognition in the brain
■ makes sense of what is happening and apply a framework to incoming
info
● Understanding Perception
○ There are 2 perceptions possible for each picture
○ Why do you think your brain gravitates towards perceiving one picture over the
other?
○ Priming
■ A phenomenon in which previous stimuli influence how people react to
subsequent stimuli
● Purpose of sensation and perception
○ evolutionary perspective:
■ sensation and perception are adaptations to stimuli that help an
individual’s chances of survival
■ species senses have been shown to be specifically adapted to their
habitats
● why?
● (go back to recording)
● Sensory receptors
○ specialized cells that detect stimuli
○ transmit information using sensory (afferent) nerves
○ Function → send info to the brain and nervous system - to create experiences of
the world
● Types of energy reception
○ Photoreception (eyes):
■ detection of light
■ Sight
○ Mechanoreception (ears and skin):
■ detection of pressure, vibrations, and movement
■ touch, hearing, equilibrium
○ Chemoreception (nose, tongue):
■ chemical stimuli
■ smell and taste
● Confused Senses
○ Synesthesia: when experiencing one sense, it induces another sense (foot
fetishes)
○ Phantom Limb Pain: when individuals lose a limb but still feel pain in the limb that
does not exist
○ Extrasensory Perception (ESP): Someone can detect info from the world without
receiving any concrete sensory input
■ ex: the ability to read a person’s mind
■ there are many reasons to consider ESP questionable
● Thresholds
○ Sensory systems need to detect varying degrees
○ Absolute Threshold
■ min. amount of stimulus energy that a person can detect
■ if a stimulus is below this threshold, it will not be detected
○ Difference Threshold (noticeable difference)
■ the degree of difference that must exist between two stimuli before the
difference is detected
■ increases as a stimulus becomes stronger
● at very low levels of stimulation, a small change can be detected
● at very high levels, small changes are less likely to be detected
● Subliminal Perception
○ Question: Can stimuli experienced below our absolute threshold affect us without
our awareness?
○ Definition: when people are affected by info that is presented below their level of
awareness
○ example: showed participants thirst vs non-thirst-based words subliminally
■ the people who saw the thirst-based words (unknowingly) drank
significantly more water than those who did not see thirst-based words
● Signal detection theory
○ decision-making about stimuli under conditions of uncertainty
○ in signal detection theory, there are 4 possible outcomes
■ hit: the signal is present, and it was detected properly
■ miss: the signal is present, but was not detected
■ false alarm: the signal was present, but it was falsely claimed to be
present
■ correct rejection: the signal was not present, and it was correctly claimed
to not be present
■ example: having a doctor check if you have a tumor
● Attention
○ Attention: focusing awareness on a narrow aspect of the environment
○ Selective attention: involves focusing on a specific aspect of an experience while
ignoring the others
○ attention is selective and shiftable
■ shiftable: focusing attention on one thing, but then switching attention to
something
○ certain features draw our attention:
■ the stimuli
■ Color
■ Size
■ Movement
● Examples of loss of attention/failure of perception
○ emotion-induced blindness: the failing to recognize a stimulus that presented
right after the emotionally charged even/situation
○ inattentional blindness: the failure to detect unexpected events when our
attention is engaged by a task
● Sensory adaptation
○ occurs when there’s a change in responsiveness of the sensory system based on
the average level surrounding stimulation
○ examples: light (what’s happening in a dark room or when we come out into the
sunshine), jumping into a pool and it’s cold at first put then starts feeling warm
after awhile
The Visual System
*
○ The visual stimulus and the eye
■ when you see something your eyes and brain are responding to
differences in light, reflected from the various colors in the environment
■ Light
● a form of electromagnetic energy
● light travels through space in waves
■ Amplitude
● the height of the wave
● perceived as the brightness of a visual stimulus
● greater amplitude = brighter light
● smaller amplitude = dim light
■ Purity
● whether they are the same or a mix of waves
● determines saturation → richness of the visual stimulus
■ Eye structure
● sclera: the white outer part of the eye that gives the eye its shape
and protects the eye from injury
● iris: colored part of the eye
● pupil: the opening in the center of the iris; contains muscles that
allow the pupil dilate
● cornea: the clear membrane on the outer part of the eye; curved
surface on the cornea bends light on the surface of the eye in
order to focus it to the back of the eye
● lens: transparent/somewhat flexible
○ person looking at something far away, the lens has a
relatively flat shape
○ person looking at something close by, more bending of the
light is needed
● rods: sensitive to light but not color; allows a person to see at night
● cones: used for color perception and operate best under bright
light
■ Stimuli in the left visual field travel to the right side of the brain and vice
versa
■ Parallel processing
● a simultaneous distribution of info across different neural
pathways
● perceive all things at one time (color, shape, movement)
● function: dramatic speeding up its process
■ Color Vision
● trichromatic theory: color perception is produced by 3 types of
receptors in the retina (red, blue, green sensitive cones)
● color blindness (supports the trichromatic theory)
○ seeing some colors but not others
○ depends on which of three kinds of cones (green, red, and
blue) is not working
○ d
● Opponent-Process Theory
○ 4 types of color receptors
○ these for receptors exist as complementary pairs
(red-green & blue-yellow colors)
○ a red-green cell could be excited by red but inhibited by
green
○ a blue-yellow cell could be excited by blue but inhibited by
yellow
○ explains afterimages
■ if you look at red, your red-green systems
○ Afterimages: sensations that remain after a stimulus is
removed
●
■ Gestalt Psychology
● people naturally organize their perceptions according to certain
patterns
● the whole is different from its parts
● principles of gestalt psychology
○ closure
○ proximity
○ similarity