Ap Psych: Sensation and Perception
Intro
Senses connect us to ourselves and surroundings.
Sensation: the raw information, doesn't yet mean anything to you until...
Perception: the mental process of sorting, identifying, and and arranging raw sensory data.
Enduring Issues in Sensation and Perception
Person-Situation: how accurately perceptual experiences reflect the world
Mind-Body: experience depending in biological processes
Diversity-University: How similarly people experience events
Stability-Change, Nature-Nurture: How our experience changes our perceptions of the outside world
The Nature of Sensation
Sensation: the experience if sensory stimulation
Receptor Cell: A specialized cell that responds to a particular type of energy
"Fire" when enough stimulation is received and sends signals to the brain
Transduction: The conversion of physical energy into coded neural signals
Precise coded signal eventually received by the brain depends on how many neurons fire, which neurons fire, and how rapidly these neurons fire.
Doctrine of specific nerve engines: any stimulation of a specific nerve will result in an experience of that nerve's specialty. (Ex. Pressure on your eye causing you to "see spots." Although it was activated by light, the result is still visual.)
Sensory Thresholds
Absolute Threshold: The physical energy required to reach a receptor cell if it is to produce any sensation.
Not always precise, so is defined as when a person can sense the stimulus 50% of the time it is present.
Tend to be remarkably low, although vary from person to person
Adaption: adjustment if the senses to the amount of stimulus they are receiving.
Allows senses to be keen to the environment without getting overwhelmed
Difference Threshold/Just-Noticeable Difference (JND): the smallest change in stimulation that can be detected 50% of the time
Changes depending on the strength of the original stimulus
Weber's Law: The principle that the JND for any gave sense is a constant fraction or
Senses connect us to ourselves and surroundings.
Sensation: the raw information, doesn't yet mean anything to you until...
Perception: the mental process of sorting, identifying, and and arranging raw sensory data.
Enduring Issues in Sensation and Perception
Person-Situation: how accurately perceptual experiences reflect the world
Mind-Body: experience depending in biological processes
Diversity-University: How similarly people experience events
Stability-Change, Nature-Nurture: How our experience changes our perceptions of the outside world
The Nature of Sensation
Sensation: the experience if sensory stimulation
Receptor Cell: A specialized cell that responds to a particular type of energy
"Fire" when enough stimulation is received and sends signals to the brain
Transduction: The conversion of physical energy into coded neural signals
Precise coded signal eventually received by the brain depends on how many neurons fire, which neurons fire, and how rapidly these neurons fire.
Doctrine of specific nerve engines: any stimulation of a specific nerve will result in an experience of that nerve's specialty. (Ex. Pressure on your eye causing you to "see spots." Although it was activated by light, the result is still visual.)
Sensory Thresholds
Absolute Threshold: The physical energy required to reach a receptor cell if it is to produce any sensation.
Not always precise, so is defined as when a person can sense the stimulus 50% of the time it is present.
Tend to be remarkably low, although vary from person to person
Adaption: adjustment if the senses to the amount of stimulus they are receiving.
Allows senses to be keen to the environment without getting overwhelmed
Difference Threshold/Just-Noticeable Difference (JND): the smallest change in stimulation that can be detected 50% of the time
Changes depending on the strength of the original stimulus
Weber's Law: The principle that the JND for any gave sense is a constant fraction or