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Sensation & Perception: In-depth Study of Receptors, Thresholds, & Subliminal Perception -, Study notes of Psychology

Western Washington University (WWU)Psychology
Prof. Lena K. Ericksen

An extensive exploration of sensation and perception, focusing on sensory receptors, thresholds, and subliminal perception. Topics include the role of light, color, and the structure of the eye, as well as the function of the ear and the theories of pitch. Additionally, it covers various types of hearing impairments and treatments, such as cochlear implants, and the senses of taste and smell.

Typology: Study notes

Pre 2010

Uploaded on 12/10/2009

annaxle
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Sensation and Perception - Chapter 3
•Sensation
–Sensation - the activation of receptors in the various sense organs.
–Sensory receptors - specialized forms of neurons.
–Sense organs:
•eyes
•ears
•nose
•skin
•taste buds
•Sensation and the central nervous system
•Cells that are triggered by light, vibrations, sounds, touch, or chemical substances are called sensory receptors.
•Sensory Thresholds
–Just noticeable difference the smallest difference between two stimuli that is detectable 50 percent of
the time. (Ernst Weber)
–Absolute threshold - the smallest or lowest amount of energy needed for a person to consciously
detect a stimulus 50 percent of the time it is present. (Gustav Fechner)
•Subliminal Sensation
–Subliminal stimuli - stimuli that are below the level of conscious awareness.
•Just strong enough to activate the sensory receptors but not strong enough for people to be
consciously aware of them.
•Limin - “threshold”
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Sensation and Perception - Chapter 3

  • Sensation
    • Sensation - the activation of receptors in the various sense organs.
    • Sensory receptors - specialized forms of neurons.
    • Sense organs:
      • eyes
      • ears
      • nose
        • skin
        • taste buds
  • Sensation and the central nervous system
  • Cells that are triggered by light, vibrations, sounds, touch, or chemical substances are called sensory receptors.
  • Sensory Thresholds
    • Just noticeable difference the smallest difference between two stimuli that is detectable 50 percent of the time. (Ernst Weber)
    • Absolute threshold - the smallest or lowest amount of energy needed for a person to consciously detect a stimulus 50 percent of the time it is present. (Gustav Fechner)
  • Subliminal Sensation
    • Subliminal stimuli - stimuli that are below the level of conscious awareness.
      • Just strong enough to activate the sensory receptors but not strong enough for people to be consciously aware of them.
      • Limin - “threshold”
  • Sublimin - “below the threshold.”
  • Subliminal perception – process by why subliminal stimuli act upon the unconscious mind, influencing behavior.
  • Ernest Weber
  • Psychologist Ernest Weber provided a formulation that is used to determine the smallest detectable difference between two stimuli.
  • Habituation
  • Habituation - tendency of the brain to stop attending to constant, unchanging information. Put your glasses on top of your head, after a while you can’t feel them!
  • Psychological Aspects to Light
  • Brightness - determined by the amplitude of the wave—the height of the wave from the base line of zero. The higher the wave, the brighter the light will be. Low waves are dimmer.
  • Color - or hue, is determined by the length of the wave.
  • Long wavelengths are found at the red end of the visible spectrum (the portion of the whole spectrum of light that is visible to the human eye), whereas shorter wavelengths are found at the blue end.
  • Saturation - refers to the purity of the color people see; mixing in black or gray would also lessen the saturation. To see “truly red” a person has to focus on only one wavelength of the visible spectrum
  • Light
  • Structure of the Eye
  • Cornea – clear membrane that covers the surface of the eye; protects the eye and is the structure that focuses most of the light coming into the eye.
  • Pupil – hole through which light from the visual image enters the interior of the eye.
  • Iris - round muscle (the colored part of the eye) in which the pupil is located; can change the size of the pupil, letting more or less light into the eye; helps focus the image.
  • Lens – another clear structure behind the iris, suspended by muscles; finishes the focusing process begun by the cornea.
  • Monochrome colorblindness - either have no cones or have cones that are not working at all.
  • Red-green colorblindness - either the red or the green cones are not working.
  • Sex-linked inheritance. More males than females suffer from color deficiencies.
  • Psychological Properties of Sound
  • Wavelength – interpreted as frequency or pitch (high, medium, or low). Sound waves are simply the vibration of the molecules of the air surrounding us.
  • Structure of the Ear
  • Auditory canal - short tunnel that runs from the pinna (external ear) to the eardrum (tympanic membrane).
  • Eardrum - thin section of skin that tightly covers the opening into the middle part of the ear, just like a drum skin covers the opening in a drum.
  • When sound waves hit the eardrum, it vibrates and causes three tiny bones in the middle ear to vibrate.
  • Hammer
  • Anvil
  • Stirrup
  • Cochlea - snail-shaped structure of the inner ear that is filled with fluid.
  • Organ of Corti – rests in the basilar membrane; contains receptor cells for sense of hearing.
  • Auditory nerve - bundle of axons from the hair cells in the inner ear; receives neural message from the organ of Corti.
  • Theories of Pitch
  • Pitch - psychological experience of sound that corresponds to the frequency of the sound waves; higher frequencies are perceived as higher pitches.
  • Place theory - theory of pitch that states that different pitches are experienced by the stimulation of hair cells in different locations on the organ of Corti (cochlea).
  • Types of Hearing Impairments
  • Conduction hearing impairment - can result from either:
  • damaged eardrum (which would prevent sound waves from being carried into the middle ear properly), or
  • damage to the bones of the middle ear (sounds cannot be conducted from the eardrum to the cochlea)
  • Treatment: ordinary hearing aids.
  • Nerve hearing impairment – can result from either:
  • damage in the inner ear, or
  • damage in the auditory pathways and cortical areas of the brain.
  • Surgery to Help Restore Hearing
  • Cochlear Implant - a microphone implanted just behind the ear picks up sound from the surrounding environment.
  • Speech processor selects and arranges the sound picked up by the microphone.
  • Implant is a transmitter and receiver, converting signals into electrical impulses.
  • Collected by the electrode array in the cochlea and then sent to the brain.
  • Helping people with hearing impairment: Cochlear Implant
  • Taste
  • Taste buds – taste receptor cells in mouth; responsible for sense of taste
  • Gustation - the sensation of a taste.
  • Five Basic Tastes:
  • Sweet
  • Sour
  • Salty
  • Bitter
  • “Brothy”
  • Smell
  • Olfaction (olfactory sense) – sense of smell.
  • Olfactory bulbs - areas of the brain located just above the sinus cavity and just below the frontal lobes that receive information from the olfactory receptor cells.
  • At least 1,000 olfactory receptors.
  • Smell
  • The sense of smell is known as olfaction.
  • The cilia in the nasal cavity act in a manner similar to taste buds in that they contain receptor sites that are stimulated by different molecules.
  • Smell – Cilia – Olfactory Receptor Cells
  • Somesthetic Senses (“Soma” – body “Esthetic” – feeling)
  • Depth perception - the ability to perceive the world in three dimensions. Requires the use of both eyes – binocular cues.
  • Studies of depth perception
    • Visual cliff experiment: In Gibson and Walk’s experiment, one cue the babies might have used to detect depth could have been based on size constancy!
  • Visual cliff experiment
  • Perceiving the world in three dimensions
    • Linear perspective – the tendency for parallel lines to appear to converge on each other.
    • Relative size - perception that occurs when objects that a person expects to be of a certain size appear to be small and are, therefore, assumed to be much farther away.
    • Interposition (overlap) - the assumption that an object that appears to be blocking part of another object is in front of the second object and closer to the viewer.
  • Perceiving the world in three dimensions
  • Binocular cues - cues for perceiving depth based on both eyes.
    • Convergence - the rotation of the two eyes in their sockets to focus on a single object, resulting in greater convergence for closer objects and lesser convergence if objects are distant.
    • Binocular disparity - the difference in images between the two eyes, which is greater for objects that are close and smaller for distant objects. Look at an object with your left eye then your right eye, the object seem to jump from one position to another!
  • Perceptual Illusions
    • Müller-Lyer illusion - illusion of line length that is distorted by inward-turning or outward-turning corners on the ends of the lines, causing lines of equal length to appear to be different.
    • Moon illusion – the moon on the horizon appears to be larger than the moon in the sky.
      • Apparent distance hypothesis
    • The moon illusion: The apparent distance hypothesis
    • Ames’ room illusion
  • Factors that Influence Perception
  • Perceptual set (perceptual expectancy) - the tendency to perceive things a certain way because previous experiences or expectations influence those perceptions.
  • Extrasensory Perception (ESP) - claim of perception that occurs without the use of normal sensory channels such as sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell.
  • Telepathy - claimed ability to read another person’s thoughts, or mind reading.
  • Clairvoyance - supposed ability to “see” things that are not actually present.
  • Precognition - supposed ability to know something in advance of its occurrence or to predict a future event.
  • Parapsychology - the study of ESP, ghosts, and other subjects that do not normally fall into the realm of ordinary psychology.