Download Chapter 6: Sensation and Perception

Chapter 6: Sensation and Perception
Objectives
● Discuss basic principles of sensory transduction, including absolute threshold, difference threshold, signal
detection, and sensory adaptation.
● Describe sensory processes (e.g., hearing, vision, touch, taste, smell, vestibular, kinesthesis, pain), including
the specific nature of energy transduction, relevant anatomical structures, and specialized pathways in the
brain for each of the senses.
● Explain common sensory disorders (e.g., visual and hearing impairments).
● Describe general principles of organizing and integrating sensation to promote stable awareness of the
external world (e.g., Gestalt principles, depth perception).
● Discuss how experience and culture can influence perceptual processes (e.g., perceptual set, context effects).
● Explain the role of top-down processing in producing vulnerability to illusion.
● Discuss the role of attention in behavior.
● Challenge common beliefs in parapsychological phenomena.
● Identify the major historical figures in sensation and perception (e.g., Gustav Fechner, David Hubel, Ernst
Weber, Torsten Wiesel).
Key Terms
R1:​Sensation
Perception
Bottom-up processing
Top-down processing
Transduction
Psychophysics
Absolute Threshold
Signal Detection Theory
Subliminal
Difference Threshold
Weber’s Law
Sensory Adaptation
Perceptual Set
R2: ​Transduction
Wavelength
Hue
Pupil
Iris
Lens
Retina
Accommodation
Rods
Cones
Optic Nerve
Blind Spot
Fovea
Feature detectors
Parallel Processing
Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory
Opponent-process Theory
R5: ​Gate Control Theory
Sensory Interaction
Kinesthesis
Vestibular Sense
R3: ​Gestalt
Figure Ground
Grouping
Depth Perception
Visual Cliff
Binocular Cues
Retinal Disparity
Monocular Cues
Phi Phenomenon
Perceptual Constancy
Color Constancy
Perceptual adaptation
Gustation (taste)
Olfaction (smell)
Prosopagnosia
Synaesthesia
R4: ​Audition
Frequency
​
Pitch
Middle Ear
Cochlea
Inner Ear
Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Conduction Hearing Loss
Cochlear Implant
Place Theory
​
Extrasensory Perception
Parapsychology
Readings:
R1-Chapter 6: ​Basic Principles of
Sensation and Perception- pages 218-226
R2- Chapter 6: ​Vision (up to Visual
Organization) ​part 1- pages 226-234
R3-Chapter 6: ​Vision (Visual Organization
to Hearing) ​part 2- pages 234-243
R4-Chapter 6: ​Hearing- pages 243-248
R5- Chapter 6: ​Other Senses and ESPpages 248-261
Frequency Theory
Study Guide
Reading 1
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What are sensation and perception?
What is the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing?
What are the three basic steps all of our sensory systems perform?
What are the absolute and difference thresholds and do some stiumuli below the abosilute threshold have an influence on
us?
How does signal detection theory and Weber’s Law help explain absolute and difference threshold?
What is the function of sensory adaption?
How do the terms we covered at the beginning of our consciousness unit fit with the basic principles of sensation and
perception? (​Think about terms like: cocktail party effect, change blindness, choice blindness, inattentional blindness)
Reading 2
1. What is the energy we see as visible light?
a. Define: transduction, wavelength, hue, amplitude, intensity
2. How does the eye transform light energy into neural messages?
a. Define cornea, pupil, iris, lens retina
b. Describe how an image looks when displayed on an eye’s retina.
c. Define: rods, cones, bipolar cells, ganglion cells, optic nerve, blind spot, fovea
d. Explain why cones are more capable of processing fine detail than rods.
e. Describe why your pupils dilate when you enter a dark room.
3. How does the brain process visual information?
a. Define feature detectors, supercell clusters, parallel processing
4. What theories help us understand color vision?
Reading 3
1. How did the Gestalt psychologists understand perceptual organization?
2. Explain the different types of form perception.
3. How do we use binocular and monocular cues to perceive the world?
4. How do perceptual constancies help us organize our sensations into meaningful perceptions?
5. How does experience effect our perception?
Reading 4
1. What are the characteristics of air pressure waves that we hear as sound?
a. Define: amplitude, frequency, pitch
2. How does the ear transform sound energy into neural messages?
a. Define: outer ear, middle ear, cochlea, inner ear, auditory nerve, auditory cortex, the role of the basilar membrane
3. What accounts for most hearing loss?
4. What theories help us understand pitch perception?
a. Define place theory and frequency theory
5. How do we locate sound?
Reading 5
1. How do we sense touch? What are the basic four skin sensations?
2. How do we understand and control pain?
3. How do we experience taste and smell?
4. How do our sense interact?
5. How do we experience smell?
6. How do we sense our body’s position and movement?
a. Define: kinesthesis and vestibular sense
7. What are the claims of ESP and what have most psychologists concluded about these claims?