Sensation and Perception

Chap 3
Basics

Brain designed = perceive +

cogitate.
= see + understand.
 The mind is what the brain
does! = higher order
cognition.
2
Sensation

 Initial Detection of energy

from the Physical World.
 Dealing with = structure +
process of the sensory
mechanism
 Stimuli that affects the
mechanism
3
Perception

 Higher order cognition =

interpretation of sensory
information.

 Sensation = detection
 PERCEPTION = Interpretation

4
Sensation & Perception
Processes

5
Basic Concepts
 Perceptual experience involves four
elements:
 Distal (far) stimulus
 The object in the external world
 Informational medium
 Reflected light, sound waves, chemical molecules,
or tactile information coming from the environment
 Proximal (near) stimulus
 Representation of the distal stimulus in sensory
receptors (e.g. picture on the retina)
 Perceptual object
 Mental representation of the distal stimulus

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cont
 Perceptual constancy
 Occurs when our perception of an
object remains the same even when
our proximal sensation of the distal
object changes
 Two cases of perceptual constancies:
 Size constancy
 Shape constancy

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cont
 Size constancy
 The perception that an object maintains the
same size despite changes in the size of the
proximal stimulation
 The same object at two different
distances projects different-sized images
on the retina
 Size constancy can be used to elicit
illusions
(e.g. Ponzo illusion or Müller-Lyer Illusion)

8
cont
 Shape constancy
 The perception that an object
maintains the same shape despite
changes in the size of the proximal
stimulus
 Involves the perceived distance of
different parts of the object from
the observer

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cont

10
Depth Perception
 Importance of depth perception
 When you drive, you use depth to assess
the distance of an approaching automobile
 When you decide to call out to a friend
walking down the street, you determine
how loudly to call, based on how far away
you perceive your friend to be

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cont

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Monocular depth cues

 Represented in just two dimensions

and observed with just one eye
1. Texture gradient
- Larger grains, farther apart
2. Relative size
- the closer the bigger
3. Interposition
- closer object partially obscures other
object; farther object is partially
obscured by other object

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Interposition

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Size

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Ames Room
(These are identical twins)

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Texture Gradients

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Binocular depth cues

1. Binocular convergence
- The closer the object you are trying
to see, the more your eyes must
turn inward
- Your muscles send messages to
your brain regarding the degree to
which your eyes are turning inward,
and these messages are interpreted
as cues indicating depth

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Cont

2. Binocular Convergence
- The closer an object is to you , the
greater the disparity between the
views of it as sensed in each of your
eyes
- The apparent jumping of images
between the two eyes, which
indicates the amount of binocular
disparity, will decrease with distance

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Retinal Disparity

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Stereo Vision

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Gibson’s Theory of direct
perception
 The array of information in our sensory
receptors, including sensory context, is all we
need to perceive anything

 We do not need higher cognitive processes or

anything else to mediate between our sensory
experiences and our perceptions

 Existing beliefs or higher-level inferential

thought processes are not necessary for
perception

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Constructive Perception
(Jerome Bruner)
 During perception we quickly form
and test various hypotheses
regarding percepts based on
 What we sense (sensory data)
 What we know (knowledge stored
in memory)
 What we can infer (using thinking)
 What we expect

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Vision
 Sensing of electromagnetic waves =
light

 Light eye cornea/lens image

on retina
 Recognition = simple 2 dimensional
b&w/complex 3 dimensional color form
= seen in the retina as 2 dimensional.
 Higher order perception = possible
impulses pass to = visual cortex
 [Link]+ existing knowledge =
recognition
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The Electromagnetic
Spectrum

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Structures of the Human
Eye

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 Cornea - Transparent portion of sclera - the
white of the eye
 Iris - Color of the eye - Muscle fibers that
control the size of the
 Pupil - Opening permits light to be focused
by the
 Lens - Controlled by ciliary muscles to focus
on the
 Fovea - a portion of the
 Retina - comprised of photoreceptors and
neurons, a portion of the brain
 Optic nerve - emerges at the
 Blind Spot - no receptors
RETINAL ORGANIZATION

 Photoreceptors - Rods and Cones

synapse on
 Bipolar cells - synapse on
 Ganglion cells - axons form
successively the
 Optic nerves, optic chiasm, and optic
tracts which synapse in the
 Lateral geniculate nuclei of the
thalamus - projects to
 Visual cortex in occipital lobe
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The Retina

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 Differences Between Rods and
Cones

Rods Cones
 Are numerous and  Are concentrated
found primarily in primarily in the
the peripheral retina fovea
 Have a lower  Have a higher
threshold for threshold for
activation activation
 Have lower acuity  Have higher acuity
 Do not process color
 Process color

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Illusions
 Reality and perception do not match.
 Perception influenced = previous knowledge,
assumptions, prejudice, sensory signals.

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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!

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Perceptual Span
 How much that can be experienced with brief
exposure.
Signal Detection Theory
 predicts how and when we detect the presence of
a faint stimulus (signal) amid background
stimulation (noise)
 assumes that there is no single absolute threshold
 detection depends partly on person’s
 experience
 expectations
 motivation
 level of fatigue

37
Signal Detection
• A stimulus too weak to perceive was called
below threshold.
• A stimulus strong enough to detect was said to
be above threshold.
 Absolute Threshold: smallest amount of a
Stimulus/physical energy necessary for a
human to be able to detect it reliably.
 the smallest change in a stimulus which a
person can detect/ minimal difference needed
to detect a stimulus change; also called the
just noticeable difference (JND)

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Iconic Storage
 visual sensory memory that very briefly
(about < 1 second)
 holds a visual representation of a scene that
has just been perceived
 Sperling (1960) demonstrates that
information in iconic memory can be recalled
accurately for no longer 1 second after
entering.

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 presented observers arrays of letters and
asked them to recall.

 subjects could remember about 4-5 letters

out of 9
 after a delay of more than 1 second they
could not recall the letters
 Sperling’s study = information in iconic
memory can be recalled accurately only
when it is attended to quickly after its
presentation;
 even short delays between presentation and
a cue to attend to the information can impair
recall.
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ECHOIC storage
 stores auditory information for a brief period of
time; if attended this information then can enter
short-term memory
 Treisman (1964) people given auditory messages
played on headphones to the left and right ears.
 Compare whether the two messages were the
same or not=messages were played with a delay.
 messages played within 2 seconds of each
compared accurately, longer delays subjects did
less well.

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Deficits in Perception
 Agnosia
 Inability to recognize and identify objects
or persons despite having knowledge of
the characteristics of the objects or
persons
 Shows the specialization of our perceptual
systems

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Deficits in Perception
 Simultagnosic
 Normal visual
fields, yet act
blind
 Perceives only
one stimulus
at a time—
single word or
object

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Prosopagnosia
 Prosopagnosia is a
recognition deficit specific
to faces.

 We distinguish between an
apperceptive type (problems
with face discrimination)
and an amnesic type
(problems with recognizing
familiar faces).

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Apperceptive Agnosia
 Inability to name, copy or
recognize visually presented
objects. Shape perception
and figure-ground
segregation is impaired.
 Basic visual functions
(color discrimination,
luminance discrimination,
visual acuity), object
identification based on non-
visual cues are preserved.

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Associative Agnosia
 A normal visual percept stripped of its
meaning.

 Visual object recognition is impaired

(e.g. naming of visually presented
objects, categorization, matching by
function).

 Preserved (more or less):

 Elementary visual perception
(e.g. matching and copying of
visually presented forms and
objects
 Drawing objects from memory
 Non-visual object recognition

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Achromatopsia
 Characterized by an
impairment of color
vision in the full visual
field.

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Akinetopsia
 An inability to perceive
motion due to brain damage
disrupting input to the
dorsal pathway (V5/MT).

 Individuals with akinetopsia

can only perceive
movement through a
compilation of still images.

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Concluding remarks
 memories are closely linked to
perceptual and attention
mechanisms, because they are (1)
modality-specific (e.g., separate
sensory memories for the senses)
 and (2) short- lived, unless some
attentional mechanism causes
information from sensory memory
to be transferred to short-term
memory. 49