Unit: 1

INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE OF MIND AND BEHAVIOR

The word psychology was actually derived from the two Greek words ‘Psyche’ and ‘Logos’. Psyche meaning ‘soul’
and ‘logos’ meaning ‘discourse’. Psychology is both an applied and academic field that studies the  human mind and
behavior. Research in psychology seeks to understand and explain how we think, act and feel. As most people
already realize, a large part of psychology is devoted to the diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues, but
that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to applications for psychology. In addition to mental health,
psychology can be applied to a variety of issues that impact health and daily life including performance
enhancement, self-help, ergonomics, motivation, productivity, and much more.

Therefore, a generally accepted definition of psychology is "the study of human behavior. Behavior can provide us
with valuable windows into a person’s emotional and cognitive states, and if we can understand the psychological
influences on behavior, we can try to better understand a person’s inner experience.

Psychology can be roughly divided into two major sections:

1. Research, which seeks to increase our knowledge base

2. Practice, through which our knowledge is applied to solving problems in the real world.
AREAS/SUB-FIELDS OF PSYCHOLOGY: (Similarities and Differences with other Sciences)

Cognitive Psychology
 Cognitive psychology focuses on understanding the mental processes of how people think.
 Problem-solving, decision-making, language, intelligence, and attention are just a few of the topics studied
by cognitive psychologists.

Developmental Psychology
 Developmental psychologists study the physical and cognitive development that occurs over the course of
the lifespan.
 These psychologists generally specialize in an area such as infant, child, adolescent, or geriatric
development, while others may study the effects of developmental delays.

Experimental Psychology
 Experimental psychologists utilize the scientific method to study a while range of human behaviors and
psychological phenomena.
 Experimental psychology is often viewed as a distinct subfield within psychology, but experimental
techniques and methods are actually used extensively throughout every subfield of psychology.
 Some of the methods used in experimental psychology include experiments, correlation studies, case
studies, and naturalistic observation.
Industrial-Organizational Psychology
 Psychologists in this field apply psychological principles to research on workplace issues such as
productivity and behavior.
 Some psychologists in this field work in areas such as human factors, ergonomics, and human-computer
interaction.
 Research in this field is known as applied research because it seeks to solve real world problems.

Personality Psychology
 Personality psychologists study the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behavior that make
each person unique.
 These psychologists often work in academic settings as instructors or researchers.

Social Psychology
 Social psychologists study social behaviors, including how individual self-image and behavior is
impacted by interactions with others.
 These psychologists often conduct research in academic settings, but others work in such areas such as
advertising and government.

Other areas of related areas of psychology are Behavioral Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology Counseling,
Developmental, Developmental Psychology Forensic Psychology Health Psychology, Neuropsychology Educational
and School Psychology Clinical-Personality Social Cluster.

Nature of psychology

1. Study of experience
Psychologists study a variety of human experiences which are mainly personal or private in nature. They may range
from experiences of dream, conscious experiences at different stages of life and experiences when the
consciousness is altered through meditation or use of psychedelic drugs. The study of such experiences helps the
psychologist to understand the personal world of the individual.

2. Study of mental processes

Psychology as the study of mental processes tries to investigate the activities happening in the brain which are
primarily non physiological in nature. These mental processes include perception, learning, remembering and
thinking. These are internal mental activities which are not directly observed but inferred from the behavioral
activities of the person. For example, we can say that somebody is thinking if he or she displays certain activities
related to finding solution to a mathematical problem assigned to him or her.

3. Study of behavior
The range of behaviors studied in psychology is very broad. It includes simple reflexes (e.g. eye blinking), common
response patterns such as talking to friends, verbal reports about feelings and internal states and complex behaviors
such as handling computers, playing piano and addressing a crowd. These behaviors are either observed directly
through naked eyes or are measured through instruments. They are generally exhibited verbally or nonverbally (e.g.
facial expression) when an individual reacts to a stimulus in a given situation.
Thus in psychology the main unit of investigation is the individual human being and his or her experiences, mental
processes and behaviours.

Mental processes
Other nature are helps in prediction the future development, emphasizes on search of truth, beliefs in cause and
effect relationships.

Some of the common definitions by different author are:

 The science of the mind or of mental states and processes. 

 The science of human and animal behavior. 
 The sum or characteristics of the mental states and processes of a person or a class of persons, or of the
mental states and processes involved in a field or activity. 
 General mental plays or strategy. 
 The mental makeup or structure of an individual that causes him or her to think or act in the way he or she
does. 
 Psychology studies the behavior of not only humans but also animals.

Misconception of Psychology

 Psychologists are mind readers

 Authority of mental telepathy or fortune telling.
 When I tell people I’m studying Psychology, their first response is generally “so can you tell
what I’m thinking?”
 Some people also think that a psychologist is the same as a psychiatrist, the type of people that lie you
down on a sofa and talk to you about your feelings.
 Criminal profiling
 Reinforcement (change in behavior)
 Lie detector(heart rate/breathing)
 Opposite attractive
 Women talks more than men
 It is better to vent your anger than to hold it.
Common Sense and Psychology

Common Sense Psychology

 As a set of fundamental assumptions.  Psychology backed by evidence/experimental

 As a set of Maximums or shared belief. proof.
 As a shared way of thinking.  Psychology is logical process.
 Naturally like instinct/critical thinking.  It helps in predicting the future development.
 First hand Observation  Able to support universal laws and principles.

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology can be classified as

a. The Early age of pre –scientific psychology

b. The Modern age of Scientific psychology

c. The Recent trends in contemporary psychology

1878 - G. Stanley Hall becomes the first American to earn a Ph.D. in psychology. Hall eventually founds
the American Psychological Association.
1879 – Wilhelm Wundt founds the first experimental psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany. The event is considered
the starting point of psychology as a separate science.
1881 --Wundt forms the professional journal Philosophische Studien(Philosophical Studies)
1883 - G. Stanley Hall opens the first experimental psychology lab in the United States at John Hopkins University.

1885 - Herman Ebbinghaus published his famous Über das Gedächtnis ("On Memory"), which was later translated
to English asMemory. A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. In the work, he describes his learning
and memory experiments that he conducted on himself.

1886 – Sigmund Freud begins providing therapy to patients in Vienna, Austria.

1888 - James McKeen Cattell becomes the first professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.
1890 - James McKeen Cattell publishes Mental Tests and Measurements, marking the beginning of the practice of
psychological assessment.
-William James publishes Principles of Psychology.
-Sir Francis Galton creates correlation technique to better understand relationships between variable in intelligence
studies.

1892 --G. Stanley Hall forms the American Psychological Association (APA), which initially has just 42 members.
- Wundt’s student Edward B. Titchener moves to America.
1894 - Margaret Floy Washburn completes her training under Tichener.
1895 - Alfred Binet forms the first psychology lab devoted to psychodiagnosis.
1898 - Edward Thorndike develops the Law of Effect.
1900– Sigmund Freud publishes Interpretation of Dreams.

1901 - The British Psychological Society is formed.

1905 - Mary Whiton Calkins is elected the first woman president of the American Psychological Association.
- Alfred Binet publishes the intelligence test New Methods for the Diagnosis of the Intellectual Level of Subnormals.
1906 - Ivan Pavlov publishes his findings on classical conditioning.
- Morton Prince founds the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
1907 – Carl Jung publishes The Psychology of Dementia Praecox.
1909 - Calkins publishes A First Book in Psychology.
1912 - Edward Thorndike publishes Animal Intelligence. The article leads to the development of the theory
ofoperant conditioning.
- Max Wertheimer publishes Experimental Studies of the Perception of Movement, leading to the development
of Gestalt Psychology.
1913 – Carl Jung begins to depart from Freudian views and develops his own theories, which are eventually known
as analytical psychology.
- John B. Watson publishes Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It. The work helped establish behaviorism, which
viewed human behavior arising from conditioned responses.
1915 – Sigmund Freud publishes work on repression.
1917 - Then president of the APA, Robert Yerkes writes the Alpha and Beta Tests for the Army to test intelligence.
1919 - John B. Watson publishes Psychology, From the Standpoint of a Behaviorist.
1920 - Watson and Rosalie Rayner publish research the classical conditioning of fear with their subject,Little Albert.
1925 - Gestal Psychology is brought to America with the publication of Wolfgang Kohler’s Perception: An
Introduction to the Gestalt Theory.
1932 - Jean Piaget becomes the foremost cognitive theorist with the publication of his work The Moral Judgment of
Children.
1935 - Henry Murray publishes the Thematic Appreception Test (TAT).
1942 - Carl Rogers developed client-centered therapy and publishes Counseling and Psychotherapy. His approach
encourages respect and positive regard for patients.
1952 - The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published.
1954 - Abraham Maslow publishes Motivation and Personality, describing his theory of a hierarchy of needs.He
also helps found humanistic psychology.
1958 - Harry Harlow publishes The Nature of Love, which describe his experiments with rhesus monkey'son the
importance of attachment and love.
1961 - Albert Bandura conducts his now famous Bobo doll experiment.
1963 - Albert Bandura first describes the concept of observational learning to explain personality development.
1974 - Stanley Milgram publishes Obedience to Authority, which presented the findings of his famousobedience
experiments.
1980 - The DSM-III is published.
1990 - Noam Chomsky publishes On Nature, Use and Acquisition of Language.
1991 - Steven Pinker publishes an article in Science introducing his theory of how children acquire language, which
he later details further in his book The Language Instinct.
1994 - The DSM-IV is published.
2000 - Genetic researchers finish mapping human genes. Scientists hope to one day isolate the individual genes
responsible for different diseases.
2002 - Steven Pinker publishes The Blank Slate, arguing against the concept of tabula rasa.

Summary

1. Philosophical Stage
 Aristotle (384 -322 BC) – a study of mind/soul.
 Plato (427 -347 BC) – science of soul.

2. Structural Stage (Consciousness)

 Wilhelm Wundt (1832 -1920) –‘father of experimental psychology’.
 Wundt defined psychology as science of internal and immediate experience i.e. As the science of
consciousness, He focused on inner sensation, feelings and thoughts.
 Edward Titcher (1867 -1927) – structure of mind (structuralism).
 William James (1842-1910) – Function of consciousness (functionalism). ‘Principle of psychology’.

3. Behavioral stage (Behavior)

 J.B. Watson (1878 -1958) – B behavior
 Charles Darwin (1809- 1882) – ‘origin of species’.
 Francis Galton (1822 – 1911) – ‘Hereditary Genius’.
 Watson –‘science of observable behavior’. ‘behaviorism’
 Stimulus –mediation – Response
 Stimulus – Response

4. Modern definition
 ‘The science of behavior and mental processes’.
 Psychology as a Empirical Science
 Psychology Studies Behavior: Overt Behavior
 Psychology Studies Mental Process: Covert Behavior

Who is the father of modern psychology?

Wilhelm Wundt. Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physician,
physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the founding figures of modern psychology.

Who is considered the first modern psychologist?

German physician Wilhelm Wundt is credited with introducing psychological discovery into a laboratory setting.
Known as the "father of experimental psychology", he founded the first psychological laboratory, at Leipzig
University, in 1879.
Perspectives of Psychology

 Biological Perspective
 Cognitive Perspective
 Behavioral Perspective
 Psychodynamic Perspective
 Humanistic Perspective
 Social –cultural Perspective
 Evolutionary Perspective

1. Bio-psychological Perspective:
The biological perspective is a broad scientific perspective that assumes that human behavior and thought
processes have a biological basis. Biology includes investigations into biochemistry of behavior associated
with neurotransmitters and hormones, genetics and heritability, and the psychophysics of sensation and
perception. Physiological psychology, neuroscience, psycho- neuroimunology and psychopharmacology are
all part of the biological perspective. Because the biological perspective relies on scientific methods, its scope
of investigation is limited to variables that can be controlled. Research methods are quantitative and seek to
produce findings that can be replicated and that are generalizable across populations.
Practical outcomes of biological psychology include the booming trade in psycho-pharmaceuticals, an
understanding of mental illness that provides viable remedies for certain very serious disorders, and
diagnostic brain scanning tools that are at the leading edge of neuroscience. 

2. Cognitive Perspective:
In response to the empty organism theory of behaviorism, the cognitive perspective developed explanations
for human behavior that suggest that human behavior is at times thoughtful and can be controlled by thought
processes. Indeed, the cognitive perspective suggests that much of human behavior is mediated by thought
processes like memory and attention, belief systems, attitudes and language. Cognitivists believe that humans
bring significant conscious processes into the mix and that much of human behavior is mediated by conscious
processes. Belief systems, value systems, thought processes, reason and intelligence have a significant impact
on why we do the things we do and act the way we act. The cognitive perspective suggests that much of
human behavior is significantly influenced by cognitive processes and is thus amenable to our thoughtful
control. 
3. Behavioral Perspective:
In an attempt to bring scientific method to bear on the understanding of human behavior, John B. Watson,
using ideas he had gleaned from the likes of Ivan Pavlov and others, decided to declare that psychology
should only concern itself with observable behavior. A science of behavior was built on only observable
behavior. Assumptions about underlying psychological causes of behavior were not admitted. The
unconscious was declared fictitious and its study, a waste of time. Serious psychology would focus on
observable, controllable, behavior. The behavioral perspective gained great momentum in the 20th century
because it was a powerful tool in training, education, and industry. Critics claimed that behaviorism was
dehumanizing. John B. Watson and others conducted a thorough explication of Classical Conditioning and B.
F. Skinner, responding somewhat to the critics of behaviorisms dehumanization, explained and expertly
defended the processes of Operant Conditioning.
4. Psychodynamic Perspective:
Consider behavior to be motivated by inner forces and conflict about which we have little awareness
and over which we have little control.
Probably the approach that has been most popularly associated with the discipline of psychology for the past
century is the psychodynamic, psychoanalytic perspective. Sigmund Freud, who was medically trained in
neurology, developed a theory of personality that made the assumption that human motivation was propelled
by conflicts between instinctual, mostly unconscious, psychological forces. He called these intra psychic
elements the id, ego and superego.
This psychodynamic theory caught on like wild fire and due to its explanatory power for human behavior,
became very popular over the following century. Freud's therapeutic method, called psychoanalysis, was
developed to identify the underlying conflicts between intra-psychic structures and resolve them by bringing
them to consciousness. Insight therapy was one term used to describe Freud's treatment approach. Freud also
contributed the first developmental theory of human personality. It suggests that human development
progresses through psychosexual stages. Each stage is characterized by specific behavioral and
psychodynamic developments and challenges.
Although Freud thought of himself as a scientist, and he was indeed very thorough in recording his methods
and outcomes, he did not practice scientific methods. Psychoanalytic theory was developed through case
study analysis, a qualitative, not scientific, method.  
Other psychodynamic theories arose, like those of Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, Margaret Mahler, and famous
development lists like Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson, but all made the same basic assumption: There is a
dynamic mind, conscious and unconscious, that influences the behavior of humans. Elements of the
unconscious psyche interact to produce motives for behavior and thought processes.
Sigmund Freud (1856 -1939) – He describes different ideas about a) the world of unconscious, b)
psychoanalytic method, c) Structure of Psyche, d) Psycho Sexual Development.
Different phases of child psycho sexual development are a) the oral stage, b) the anal stage, c) Genital Stage,
d) the Latency stage, e) the phallic Stage. Oedipus and Electra phases Freud says that they are the results of
the sexual attraction or pleasure the children receive in the company of the opposite sex parent.

5. Humanistic/Existential Perspective:

The humanistic perspective arose in reaction to the deterministic and pessimistic psychoanalytic view and the
mechanistic behavioral perspective, to support more optimistic views that humans are motivated by their
potential to be creative and productive in response to their social and environmental conditions. The
existential part of the humanist view recognizes the reality of being in a world and the opportunity that we
have to choose a path for ourselves. Humanism is hopeful, focuses on subjective, conscious experience, tries
to solve human problems and emphasizes the human potential to grow in a positive manner. The humanist
 philosophy respects diversity and confronts reality as it is, both the painful and pleasurable, the good and the
bad. Humanism assumes that people have choices about their behavior and possess free will to act and also
must assume responsibility for choices and consequences. The humanist perspective differs from the
biological perspective in that the assumptions about causes for behavior lie in human self-efficacy, choice and
free will as opposed to the determinism of biological causes. Humanist and existential philosophies are
combined because they both emphasize free will and responsibility as central to the nature of being.

6. Socio-cultural Perspective:

The social/cultural perspective in psychology suggests that human behavior is influenced by social context,
environmental cues, social pressures and cultural influences. Anyone who has attended a football game will
recognize that human behavior is susceptible to influence of the crowd mentality. We are all shaped by the
context of our environment and influenced by the perception of authority in our social order. Social
psychologists suggest that these forces are very powerful and explain a great deal about the causes of human
behavior and thought processes.

7. Evolutionary Perspective:

The evolutionary perspective explains human behavior and thought process as resulting from evolutionary
processes. The underlying assumption of biological evolution is survival of the species. Human behavior
is understood in the light of the question: how does this behavior result from processes that support the
survival of the species?    

Summary

Biological
 Cause of behavior is your brain.
 To change behaviors, you have to change the way the brain functions

Behaviorism
 How does the environment impact the way you behave?
 Environmental conditions like rewards/punishments

Cognitive
 Based on mental process (Speaking, Thinking etc.)
 People act because they think; People thin because they are human

Humanistic
 People are innately good and capable of choice.
 Main task of humans is to grow and develop

Psychodynamic
 Behavior is result of unconscious dynamics, inner forces.
 Not based on observation
Socio-cultural
 Behavior results from social and cultural influences.
 Ex: Kissing

Evolutionary
 Mental abilities evolve over millions of years
 Ex: Vision

Scientific Methods and Psychological Research

Psychology uses scientific methods for the systematic study of an organism’s behavior. The scientific methods are
used to make observations, form theories and the refine theories in the light of new observation. Psychologists use
these strategies to describe, predict, and explain behavior and mental precision.

1. Descriptive methods
2. Case study method
3. Survey method
4. Naturalistic Observation method
5. Experimental method

1. Naturalistic Observation:

Naturalistic Observation is also called objectives observation, system observation or simply as observation
method. It can be divided into two categories as participant observation and non- participant observation,
There are certain important steps involved in carrying out the observation method which are as following:
a) Observation of behavior, b) Noting of behavior c) Interpretation and analysis of behavior d)
generalization.

Advantages Disadvantages/limitation
i. The main virtue is directness; it makes it possible i.This method cannot legitimately infer cause and
 to study behavior as it occurs.
ii. The researcher need not ask people about their
behavior and interactions.
iii. Much richer information
iv. Higher ecology validity
effect relation between variables that are only
observed but not manipulated. Lack of control
over conditions makes replication more
difficult.
ii) This method is slow and expensive process,
requiring human observers / or costly
surveillance equipment.
iii) Internal experiences cannot be inferred
always form out ard activities, unless the
experiencing person making statements.
iv) There may be some errors in judgment while
observing person’s behavior. Biases ad prejudice
may influence.

2. Experimental Research:

Experimental method is a research method in which researcher systematically alters on or more

independent variable in order to determine whether such changes influence some aspect of behavior.
i) Raising a problem
ii) Formulation of a hypothesis
iii) To distinguish between dependent and independent variable.
iv) Controlling the environment or the situation.
v) Analysis of the result.
vi) Verification of the hypothesis by the result of the experiment.

Advantages Disadvantages
i) Testing casual relationship Artificial situation of the laboratory

ii) Replication (repeated) i) Difficult in attaining cooperation and attitude of

the subject.

ii) Control the environment iii) Experimenter effects.

iv) Limited field

3. Survey Method:
Survey type research studies usually have larger samples where investigators with the help of different printed
questions ask people to report their behavior or options. The questions are based on the individual attitudes,
values, habits or other characteristics.

4. Case Study:
Case study method is also known as case history, or clinical method. It is one of the oldest research method used
particularly to reveal depths for the diagnosis and treatment of behavior disorders in psychology.
5. Descriptive research:
In this method the research naturally described the organism. In everyday life all of us observe ad describe
people, often forming different guesses about why they behave as they do. Professional psychologists do the
same but more objectively and systematically. The main problem in descriptive method is that the researcher
should be a skilled and experienced person free of bias or prejudice to understand the behavior of the organism.

Revised Questions

1. Define psychology.
2. Introduce major sub-field of Psychology.
3. Mention any three misconception about psychology.
4. Differentiate common sense and psychology.
5. How Freud defines Oedipus and Electra complex.
6. What are the four stages of history of psychology?
7. Define cognitive Perspective.
8. What does psychodynamic perspectives talks about?
9. List limitation of experimental method.
10. What are the advantages of Naturalistic Observations?
11. Define Overt and Covert Behavior.
12. What are S-R and S –O –R paradigms?
13. Psychology is a science that studies human behavior and mental process. Justify. (10)
14. How are behavior studies through experimental method? What are its advantages and disadvantages? (10)
 Unit: 2

Importance of Biology in Psychological understanding of behavior,

The biological approach believes us to be as a consequence of our genetics and physiology. It is the only approach in
psychology that examines thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from a biological and thus physical point of view.
Therefore, all that is psychological is first physiological. All thoughts, feeling & behaviour ultimately have a
biological cause.

A biological perspective is relevant to the study of psychology in three ways:

1. Comparative method: different species of animal can be studied and compared. This can help in the search
to understand human behavior.
2. Physiology: how the nervous system and hormones work, how the brain functions, how changes in structure
and/or function can affect behavior. For example, we could ask how prescribed drugs to treat depression affect
behavior through their interaction with the nervous system.

3. Investigation of inheritance: what an animal inherits from its parents, mechanisms of inheritance (genetics).
For example, we might want to know whether high intelligence is inherited from one generation to the next.

Each of these biological aspects, the comparative, the physiological (i.e. the brain) and the genetic, can help explain
human behavior.

Psychology is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of mental functions and
behaviors.   Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while
also exploring the psychological and neurobiological processes that underlie certain functions and behaviors. For
this reason, biology plays a very important role in the study of psychology.   Psychology determines what people
perceive to feel and behave, but underlying it all, ultimately determining the way we act, feel and behave, is biology.
A biological perspective is relevant to psychology in the study of how the nervous system and hormones work, how
the brain functions and how changes in structure and/or function can affect behavior

Neurons

 Neurons are specialized cells that are the basic elements of the nervous system that carry massages.

 The basic unit of nervous system is nerve cell or neuron.

 The most important feature of neurons is their ability to communicate with other cells.
  It is estimated that about two billion neurons exist in the brain alone and the number of neural connections
within the brain to be one quadrillion.

Structure of Neurons

In playing the piano, driving a car, or throwing a ball to the basket, different muscles are involved. The body system
sends messages to the muscles and coordinates these messages to produce successful results. Such messages are
passed through specialized cells called neurons.

Components of neurons: the cell membrane, dendrites, the cell body, the axon, myelin sheath and neurotransmitters.

a. Dendrites: They are cluster of fibers at one end of a neuron that receives messages from other neurons.
b. Axon: It is a tube like long extension from the end of a neuron that carries messages to other cells through
the neuron. The length of axons range from several millimeters to three feet.
c. Terminal buttons: They are small branches at the end of an axon that relay massages to other cells.
Electrical messages travel through neuron beginning with detection of messages by dendrites, continue into the
cell body(nucleus) and pass down the axon.
d. Myelin sheath: It is the axons protective coating, made of fat and protein. Its function is to prevent messages
from short circulating by insulating the axons.
e. Neurotransmitters: when a neuron receives a signal (heat, pressure, light etc)from adjacent neurons or from
sensory receptors it fires or becomes active. This neural impulse is called the action potential. It is a brief
electrical change that travels down the axon. When the action potential reaches the knob like terminal buttons at
an axons end, it triggers the release to chemical messages called neurotransmitters.

Structure of Neurons

Nervous system

The body’s speedy, electrochemical communication system consists of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and
central nervous systems. It has two parts;

 Central Nervous System (CNS)

  Brain (hind brain, midbrain and forebrain) and Spinal cord.

 Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

 Automatic nervous system (parasympathetic system and sympathetic) and somatic nervous system.

Structure and function of central nervous system

The central nervous system (CNS) controls most functions of the body and mind.

 Controls the brain and spinal cord

 The Brain—directs mental processes and maintains basic life functions

 The Spinal Cord—receives sensory input, sends information to the brain, responds with motor
output

 It consists of two parts: the brain and the spinal cord. The brain is the center of our thoughts, the interpreter
of our external environment, and the origin of control over body movement.

Structure of Brain

 Hindbrain

 Controls many functions key to survival, including keeping airway clear, heart beat, breathing,
reflexes, sleep, respiration, balance.
  Midbrain

 Coordinates motion, relays information to other sites; targeting auditory and visual stimuli,
regulating body temperature.

 Forebrain
 Cortical and sub-cortical structures; intelligent adaptive behavior.

Peripheral Nervous System

Peripheral Nervous System is categorized as Autonomic Nervous System and Somatic Nervous System.

 System of nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord

 Send control to the glands and smooth muscles

 Controls internal organs, usually not under voluntary control.

 Somatic Nervous system: the activities basically related to muscles that control movements of the body are
regulated by somatic nervous system.
a) Autonomic Nervous System
Automatic is categories into two parts as
i) Parasympathetic System and
ii) Sympathetic System

i) Sympathetic Nervous System:

 Triggered when body temperature is too low
 Revives up body activity to prepare for rigorous activity
 Increased heart rate
 Slowing down of peristalsis (rhythmic contractions of intestines), so not using energy during digestion
 Vasoconstriction: Contraction of skins capillaries

ii) Parasympathetic Nervous System

 Triggered when body’s temperature is too high
 Restored body’s internal activities
 Cardio slowing
 Speeds up peristalsis
 Vasolidation: Widening of skin’s capillaries
 Stimulus
 Body prepares for response
 Body returns to normal

b) Somatic Nervous System:

The activities basically related to muscles that controls moments of the body are regulated by somatic nervous
system. It carries information that receptors received from the environment to the spinal cord, brain and nerves by
affect nerves and passes back the information from brain and spinal cord to the muscles through effect nerves.
Endocrine system and its importance

The endocrine system is also essential to communication. This system utilizes glands located throughout the body,
which secrete hormones that regulate a variety of things such as metabolism, digestion, blood pressure and growth.
While the endocrine system is not directly linked to the nervous system, the two interact in a number of ways.
Information travels through our bodies in two forms; as electrical signals, or as chemical signals. The chemical
signals are created and carried throughout the body using the endocrine system. This system works more slowly than
the electrical signals, and is made up of glands that secret hormones (the carriers of the information) in the
bloodstream.
Endocrine system is a chemical communication network that sends messages through the nervous system via the
blood stream and secretes hormones that affect body growth and functioning.

How are the endocrine and nervous system linked?

The brain structure known as the hypothalamus connects these two important communication systems. The
hypothalamus is a tiny collection of nuclei that is responsible for controlling an astonishing amount of behavior.
Located at the base of the forebrain, the hypothalamus regulates basic needs such as sleep, hunger, thirst and sex in
addition to emotional and stress responses. The hypothalamus also controls the pituitary glands, which then controls
the release of hormones from other glands in the endocrine system.

Major components of the endocrine system are:

Pituitary glands (base of the brain)

Although it is no bigger than a pea, the pituitary gland, located at the base of the brain just beneath the
hypothalamus, is considered the most important part of the endocrine system.

It's often called the "master gland" because it makes hormones that control several other endocrine glands.

 Thyroid glands (Neck)

 Adrenal glands (top of our kidney)

Major functions of the endocrine glands are:

 Regulate metabolism and growth;

 Regulate absorption of nutrients;

 Regulate fluid balance and ion concentration;

 Regulates the body’s response to stress;

 Regulates sexual characteristics, reproduction, birth and

 Lactation (breast feeding)

Revised Questions:

1. What is endocrine System?

2. How is memory related to brain?
3. What are the differences between sympathetic and Parasympathetic nervous system?
4. What are neurons?
5. What are the two components of central nervous system?
6. What are the structures of brain?
7. How is biology important in shaping human behavior?
8. “Neuron play major role in transforming information from body to Bain centers and brain to the body”. Explain
with a diagram the functions of Neurons. (10)
9. With structure explain the function of central nervous system. (10)
10.What are the major function of sympathetic and Parasympathetic nervous system? (10)
11.What is endocrine system? Explain its function in human body.
12.How does sense of vision transmit to the brain? What are illusions? Give two examples. (10)
13.Explain the function of Spinal Cord?

Unit 3

Sensation and Perception

10 hours
Sensation: Meaning

Activation of the sense organ by a source of physical energy. A particular feeling or effect that your body
experiences. A particular feeling or experience that may not have a real causes. The ability to feel things through
your physical senses.
Examples of Sensation
 I experienced a stinging sensation in my arm.
 She felt a burning sensation in her throat.
 She craved new experiences and sensations.
 She had the strange sensation that someone was watching her.
 I couldn't quite shake the sensation that I'd been fooled.
 Her injury left her with no sensation in her legs.

How sensation and Perception related?

1) Sensation occurs:
 a) Sensory organs absorb energy from a physical stimulus in the environment.
 b) Sensory receptors convert this energy into neural impulses and send them to the brain.

2) Perception follows:
 a) The brain organizes the information and translates it into something meaningful.
 Importance of Sensation
1. Sensations and perceptions are the basic means by which people experience the world and build a
worldview to explain those experiences. Sensations are direct sensory stimuli, such as seeing shapes and
colors, hearing sounds or feeling a touch.
2. Perceptions are the ways we interpret those sensations to make sense of what we are sensing.
3. Sensations and perceptions shape the way humans see the world. The ability to take in information from
reality and process it in meaningful ways allows people to form a worldview that helps them to understand
life and make wise decisions. A lack or loss of sensations, such as blindness or deafness, creates a gap in
the experience and makes it harder to understand events fully. A perception failure leads to
misinterpretation of life and an inability to respond adequately to the current situation.

Sensory threshold

In discussion of sensation in the field of psychology, the absolute threshold refers to the smallest perceptible
stimulus that causes a sensation. A light that is just barely bright enough to see or a touch that is the lightest touch
you can feel is at the absolute threshold of sensation. The difference threshold refers to the smallest possible change
in a stimulus that will register in your sensations as a difference. These thresholds are important because they define
a person's direct experience of the world. Threshold - a dividing line between what has detectable energy and what
does not.
For example - many classrooms have automatic light sensors. When people have not been in a room for a while, the
lights go out. However, once someone walks into the room, the lights go back on. For this to happen, the sensor has
a threshold for motion that must be crossed before it turns the lights back on. So, dust floating in the room should
not make the lights go on, but a person walking in should.
Difference Threshold - the minimum amount of stimulus intensity change needed to produce a noticeable change.
the greater the intensity (ex., weight) of a stimulus, the greater the change needed to produce a noticeable change.
For example, when you pick up a 5 lb weight, and then a 10 pound weight, you can feel a big difference between
the two. However, when you pick up 100 lbs, and then 105 lbs, it is much more difficult to feel the difference.
Weber’s law: A basic law of psychophysics stating that a just noticeable difference is a constant proportion to the
intensity of a initial stimulus (rather than a constant amount).

Signal-Detection Theory - detection of a stimulus involves some decision making process as well as a sensory
process. Additionally, both sensory and decision making processes are influenced by many more factors than just
intensity.
a) Noise - how much outside interference exists.
b) Criterion - the level of assurance that you decide must be met before you take action. Involves higher mental
processes. You set criterion based on expectations and consequences of inaccuracy.
For example - at a party, you order a pizza...you need to pay attention so that you will be able to detect the
appropriate signal (doorbell), especially since there is a lot of noise at the party. But when you first order the pizza,
you know it won't be there in 2 minutes, so you don't really pay attention for the doorbell. As the time for the pizza
to arrive approaches, however, your criterion changes...you become more focused on the doorbell and less on
extraneous noise
Habituation and adaptation
Sensory adaptation is the tendency of the sense organs to adjust to continuous, unchanging stimulation by
reducing their functioning or sensitivity.
An adjustment in sensory capacity after prolonged exposure to unchanging stimuli is adaptation.
Humans also have the ability to adapt their sensations to more efficiently gather relevant information from their
settings.
For example, when there are many overlapping or potentially overwhelming stimuli, the human brain can use
"signal detection" to filter out noise and enhance perception of relevant details, as when you hear your name spoken
in a noisy room or glance around a room for red objects.
Similarly, a constant sensation will become less vividly noticed over time, such as when you stop noticing a
background noise, to make room for novel stimuli that may be more relevant.

Habituation is a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations.

For example, a novel sound in your environment, such as a new ring tone, may initially draw your attention or even
become distracting.
After you become accustomed to this sound, you pay less attention to the noise and your response to the sound will
diminish. This diminished response is habituation.
Habituation is one of the simplest and most common forms of learning.

Characteristics of Habituation

 If the habituation stimulus is not presented for a long enough period of time before a sudden
reintroduction, the response will once again reappear at full-strength, a phenomenon known as
spontaneous recovery.
 The more frequently a stimulus is presented, the faster habituation will occur.
 Very strong stimuli tend to result in slower habituation. In some cases, such as very loud noises like a car
alarm or a siren, habituation will never occur.
 Changing the intensity or duration of the stimulation may result in a reoccurrence of the original response.
 Habituation can generalize to similar stimuli.

Types of sensory experiences

We can divide easily the sensation process into five categories on the basis of sense organs as:
 Tactual Sensation: skin -touch
 Taste Sensation: tongue -taste
 Olfactory Sensation : nose -smell
 Auditory Sensation: ear -hear
 Visual Sensation : eye -sight

Types of sensation
 Superficial sensation: touch, pain, temperature, and two-point discrimination.
 Deep sensation: muscle and joint position sense (proprioception), deep muscle pain, and vibration sense.
 Visceral sensations: relayed by autonomic afferent fibers and include hunger, nausea, and
 visceral pain Special senses—smell, vision, hearing, taste, and equilibrium
Structure and functions of Visual (Eye)
Is accomplished by the organ called the eye and the portions of the brain associated with receiving and
interpreting light waves
Our eyes and brain are only able to interpret a portion of the light spectrum, which is why we can not see x-rays or
infrared light.  Wavelength is the distance between any point in a wave and the corresponding point on the next
cycle.
  The Eye has:
 Cornea- how light get through and maintains the shape of the eye
 Lens- focuses the light
 Pupil- controls the amount of light
 Retina- is the back of the eye ball where the light waves are focused
 The rods are visual receptors that respond to brightness they are important for seeing in dim light.
 Cones- are visual receptors that respond to hue, or color variations.  They are most important for color
vision in bright light.
 Optic nerve- transmits the information from the retina to the brain [occipital lobe].  At the spot where the
optic nerve is there is a "blind spot" because there are no receptors there.

Structure of eye

Function of eye

 Human vision is one of the most complex visual systems among animals.
 The main sensory organ of the visual system is the eye, which takes in the physical stimuli of light rays
and transducer them into electrical and chemical signals that can be interpreted by the brain to construct
physical images.
  The eye has three main layers: the sclera, which includes the cornea; the choroid, which includes the pupil,
iris, and lens; and the retina, which includes receptor cells called rods and cones.
The human visual system is capable of complex color perception, which is initiated by cones in the retina and
completed by impulse integration in the brain. Depth perception is our ability to see in three dimensions and relies
on both binocular (two-eye) and monocular (one-eye) cues.

Auditory sensation

The ear consists of three areas:

 outer ear;
 middle ear, and
 inner ear.
The middle ear is the area we are most interested in when looking at the cause and effects of OM.
Outer ear
The outer ear consists of the pinna, the part you can easily see and feel, and the ear canal. The pinna helps to gather
the sound waves around us. These sound waves travel down the ear canal where they strike the ear drum. The ear
drum separates the outer and middle ear.
Middle ear
When sound waves strike the ear drum they cause it to vibrate, which in turn causes the three small bones in the
middle ear to move.  These three small bones are collectively called the ossicles or easily known as the middle ear
bones.  The ossicles consist of the:
 malleus (hammer);
 incus (anvil), and
 stapes (stirrup).

The stirrup is connected to a tiny membrane on the inner ear called the oval window.
Inner ear
The oval window forms the entrance to the inner ear or cochlea. The cochlea is coiled and filled with fluid. If we
magnify a section of the cochlea, we can see that the inner cochlea is lined with tiny hair cells.
Function of Hearing

Sound funnels through the pinna into the external auditory canal, a short tube that ends at the eardrum (tympanic
membrane). Sound causes the eardrum and its tiny attached bones in the middle portion of the  ear to vibrate, and
the vibrations are conducted to the nearby cochlea.

 Motor and reflex effects: position of the eyes and head. Maintaining balance.
 Effects on higher functions: thought, memory, language, body language, emotions.
 Sensory effects: position and movement of the head.
 Sensorial effects: perception of sound.
 Effects on state of consciousness and vigilance: triggering of sleeping and waking phases. Maintaining
alertness.

Theories of Hearing 

Hermonn von Helmhotz proposed the place theory of hearing in 1863.  He suggested that the sensation of pitch is
determined by the place on the basilar membrane that is stimulated.  The nerves attached to basilar membrane are
sensitive to different frequencies and send out different impulses from different locations.

Von Bekesy [1960] expanded the place theory by suggesting the traveling wave principle, which is sound waves
traveling through the cochlea move the basilar membrane at a location that vibrates at the particular
pitch.  However, there are problems with both theories and more research is needed.

Wernicke's area, of the brain is important in speech perception. Damage to that area leads to aphasia, a disorder in
which a person loses the ability to understand speech.  In most right handed people Wernicke's area is located in the
left hemisphere.

Perception
Definition

The sorting out, interpretation, analysis and integration of stimuli by the sense organs and brain.
The mental process of recognizing and interpreting an object throu
h one or more of the senses stimulated by a physical object.
Perception can be defined as our recognition and interpretation of sensory information. Perception also includes
how we respond to the information. We can think of perception as a process where we take in sensory information
from our environment and use that information in order to interact with our environment. Perception allows us to
take the sensory information in and make it into something meaningful.

Characteristics of perception:
They are sensation, organization, interpretation, and categorization of input according to past experiences.
 The process of sensory perception takes place very quickly in the human brain, usually within less than
one second. Different types of perception are possible through the complex activity of the nervous system
that receives input from each of the five senses.
  This input then converts to signals that travel to the brain via the spinal cord  as well as the peripheral
nervous system.
 Each of the characteristics of perception is both a physical process and a subjective experience according
to different personalities, biases, and backgrounds.

Subliminal and Extrasensory perception

Extrasensory perception:
Extrasensory perception or ESP includes reception of information not gained through the recognized physical
senses but sensed with the mind.
The term was adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy
(mind readers), clairaudience, and clairvoyance(perceive remote events) and their trans-temporal operation as
precognition(seeing events before they happens) or retro cognition.
ESP is also sometimes referred to as a sixth sense. The term implies acquisition of information by means external
to the basic limiting assumptions of science, such as those organisms can only receive information from the past to
the present.
Parapsychology is the study of paranormal psychic phenomena, including ESP. Parapsychologists generally regard
such tests as the ganzfeld experiment as providing compelling evidence for the existence of ESP.
The scientific community rejects ESP due to the absence of an evidence base, the lack of a theory which would
explain ESP, the lack of experimental techniques which can provide reliably positive results, and considers ESP a
pseudoscience.

Subliminal perception: It refers to the perception of messages about which we have no awareness. The stimulus
could be a written word, a sound, or even a smell that activates the sensory system but that is not intense enough for
a person to report having experienced it. In short we are able to perceive at least some king of information of which
we are unaware, there’s little evidence that subliminal message can change our attitude or behavior in substantial
ways.
Subliminal (or below the threshold) message for one person, may be supraliminal (above the threshold) for another
person. Subliminal perception: When we detect stimuli that are below our absolute threshold for conscious
awareness.

(Pathways in Brain and top-down and bottom-up processing)

Top down Processing: Perception is constructed by cognition.

Bottom up Processing: Perception directs cognition.

Psychologist Richard Gregory argued that perception is a constructive process which relies on top-down

processing. For Gregory (1970) perception is a hypothesis.
For Gregory, perception involves making inferences about what we see and trying to make a best guess.  Prior
knowledge and past experience, he argued, are crucial in perception.
When we look at something, we develop a perceptual hypothesis, which is based on prior knowledge. The
hypotheses we develop are nearly always correct. However, on rare occasions, perceptual hypotheses can be
disconfirmed by the data we perceive.

Summary
 A lot of information reaches the eye, but much is lost by the time it reaches the brain (Gregory estimates
about 90% is lost).
 Therefore, the brain has to guess what a person sees based on past experiences. We actively construct our
perception of reality.
 Richard Gregory proposed that perception involves a lot of hypothesis testing to make sense of the
information presented to the sense organs.
 Our perceptions of the world are hypotheses based on past experiences and stored information.
 Sensory receptors receive information from the environment, which is then combined with previously
stored information about the world which we have built up as a result of experience.
 The formation of incorrect hypotheses will lead to errors of perception (e.g. visual illusions like the Necker
cube).

In the brain, top-down and bottom-up are not, actually, separate processes. Theorists artificially separate them in
order to talk about them. In terms of cognition, a bottom-up process occurs when something unexpected is moving
in the corner of your eye and catches your attention. This causes you to look over and react. The signal causing this
chain of events originated in the environment, at the "bottom" of the sensory processing stream.

A top-down process is like trying to find Waldo in "Where's Waldo?” You start with an internal "high-level" goal,
which determines where you look next. You are looking "for" something, so higher-level brain areas "prime" the
low level visual areas to detect that pattern. In terms of how it works in the brain, the easiest way to think about it
might be to make an analogy to communication within a larger corporation.

Theoretical explanation of perceptual organization (Gestalt principles)

Gestalt principles, or gestalt laws, are rules of the organization of perceptual scenes. When we look at the world, we
usually perceive complex scenes composed of many groups of objects on some background, with the objects
themselves consisting of parts, which may be composed of smaller parts, etc. How do we accomplish such a
remarkable perceptual achievement, given that the visual input is, in a sense, just a spatial distribution of variously
colored individual points? The beginnings and the direction of an answer were provided by a group of researchers
early in the twentieth century, known as Gestalt psychologists. Gestalt is a German word meaning 'shape' or 'form'.
Gestalt principles aim to formulate the regularities according to which the perceptual input is organized into unitary
forms, also referred to as (sub)wholes, groups, groupings, or Gestalten (the plural form of Gestalt). These principles
mainly apply to vision, but there are also analogous aspects in auditory and somatosensory perception. In visual
perception, such forms are the regions of the visual field whose portions are perceived as grouped or joined
together, and are thus segregated from the rest of the visual field. 
1. Figure-ground - this is the fundamental way we organize visual perceptions. When we look at an object, we
see that object (figure) and the background (ground) on which it sits. For example, when I see a picture of a

friend, I see my friends face (figure) and the beautiful Sears brand backdrop behind my friend (ground).

2. Simplicity/pragnanz (good form) - we group elements that make a good form. However, the idea of "good
form" is a little vague and subjective. Most psychologists think good form is what ever is easiest or most
simple. For example, what do you see here: : > ) do you see a smiling face? There are simply 3 elements from
my keyboard next to each other, but it is "easy" to organize the elements into a shape that we are familiar with.

3. Proximity - nearness=belongingness. Objects that are close to each other in physical space are often perceived
as belonging together.
4. Similarity - do I really need to explain this one? As you probably guessed, this one states that objects that are
similar are perceived as going together. For example, if I ask you to group the following objects: (* * # * # # #)
into groups, you would probably place the asterisks and the pound signs into distinct groups.

5. Continuity - we follow whatever direction we are led. Dots in a smooth curve appear to go together more than
jagged angles. This principle really gets at just how lazy humans are when it comes to perception.
6. Common fate - elements that move together tend to be grouped together. For example, when you see
geese flying south for the winter, they often appear to be in a "V" shape.

7. Closure - we tend to complete a form when it has gaps.

Perceptual ambiguity and distortion

Gestalt Laws of Perceptual Grouping helps us understand the way we perceive things by patterns. It is the "nature"
of perception. 
Learning-based inference is the "nurture" of perception. It is when we use past experiences to help us perceive
certain things.
Cognitive illusions are assumed to arise by interaction with assumptions about the world, leading to "unconscious
inferences", an idea first suggested in the 19th century by the German physicist and physician Hermann Helmholtz.
Cognitive illusions are commonly divided into ambiguous illusions, distorting illusions, paradox illusions, or fiction
illusions.
Ambiguous illusions are pictures or objects that elicit a perceptual "switch" between the alternative interpretations.
The Necker cube is a well-known example; another instance is the Rubin vase.

Paradox illusions are generated by objects that are paradoxical or impossible, such as the Penrose
triangle or impossible staircase seen, for example, in M.C. Escher's Ascending and Descending and Waterfall. The
triangle is an illusion dependent on a cognitive misunderstanding that adjacent edges must join.
Fictions are when a figure is perceived even though it is not in the stimulus.
Distorting or geometrical-optical illusions are characterized by distortions of size, length, position or curvature. A
striking example is the Café wall illusion. Other examples are the famous Müller-Lyer illusion and Ponzo illusion.
This is an example of two identical Necker cubes, the one on the left showing an intermediate object (blue bar)
going in "down from the top" while the one on the right shows the object going in "up from the bottom" which
shows how the image can change its perspective simply by changing which face (front or back) appears behind the
intervening object.

Social cognition and behavior: process of social cognition

Social cognition is the study of how people process social information, especially its encoding, storage, retrieval,
and application to social situations.

Social cognition has its roots in social psychology which attempts "to understand and explain how the thoughts,
feelings, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others"
(Allport, 1985, p. 3). It studies the individual within a social or cultural context and focuses on how people perceive
and interpret information they generate themselves (intrapersonal) and from others (interpersonal) (Sternberg,
1994).
A variety of researchers who started out investigating phenomena from other schools of thought have moved to this
perspective. For example, Albert Bandura (1986) initially studied learning from a behavioral perspective (e.g.,
Bandura, 1965), while Jerome Bruner (1990) initially studied learning from a cognitive perspective (e.g., Bruner,
1957).
Festinger's (1957) cognitive-dissonance theory, Bem's (1972) self-perception theory (see Greenwald, 1975), and
Weiner's (1985) attribution theory are additional examples of how the perspective of social cognition has been
applied to the study of the learning process. A major implication of this perspective is that effective teaching must
be grounded in an appropriate social environment (e.g., Hannafin, 1997).
One of the most important concepts developed by Bandura (1986) is that of reciprocal determinism. From this
perspective, a person's behavior is both influenced by and is influencing a person's personal factors and the
environment. Bandura accepts the possibility of an individual's behavior being conditioned through the use of
consequences (Skinner, 1938). At the same time he recognizes that a person's behavior can impact the environment
(Sternberg, 1988). The same is true of the relationship between personal factors such as cognitive skills or attitudes
and behavior or the environment. Each can impact and be impacted by the other.
WHY STUDY SOCIAL COGNITION?
 Construal impact how people process and remember social information differently.
 Our judgments are rarely (if ever!) flawless.
 Social cognition gives us useful information about the strategies & rules that people follow to make
judgments.
 Mistakes often reveal a lot about how we think by showing what our limitations are.
 What mistakes do we make? Why do we make them?

Four core process:

 Attention :Selecting information; What captures and holds our attention depends on our goals and
information (restricted and unrestricted attention)
 Interpretation: Giving information meaning; Our interpretation of objects is influenced by our goals and
information.
 Judgment: Using information to form impressions and make decisions
 Memory: storing information for later use

Attitude

An attitude is "a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially
significant objects, groups, events or symbols" (Hogg, & Vaughan 2005, p. 150)

"..A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or
disfavor" (Eagly, & Chaiken, 1993, p. 1)

Attitudes structure can be described in terms of three components.

o Affective component: this involves a person’s feelings / emotions about the attitude object. For example:
“I am scared of spiders”.
o Behavioral (or conative) component: the way the attitude we have influences how we act or behave. For
example: “I will avoid spiders and scream if I see one”.
o Cognitive component: this involves a person’s belief / knowledge about an attitude object. For example: “I
believe spiders are dangerous”.

Formation of Attitude
  Friends
 Media
 Past experiences
 Coaches teachers religion/culture
 Family
 Feedback can reinforce attitude
 Attitude can create false perceptions known as prejudice

Types of organizational Attitude

1. Job Satisfaction A collection of positive and or negative feelings that an individual holds toward his or
her job.
2. Job Involvement Identifying with the job, actively participating in it, and considering performance
important to self-worth.
3. Organizational Commitment Identifying with a particular organization and its goals, and wishing to
maintain membership in the organization.

Social influence

Social influence occurs when one's emotions, opinions, or behaviors are affected by others. Social influence takes
many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, and leadership, persuasion,
sales and marketing.

Social influence is defined as change in an individual’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behaviors that results from
interaction with another individual or a group. Social influence is distinct from conformity, power, and authority.
Conformity occurs when an individual expresses a particular opinion or behavior in order to fit in to a given
situation or to meet the expectations of a given other, though he does not necessarily hold that opinion or believe
that the behavior is appropriate. Power is the ability to force or coerce reticular way by controlling her outcomes.
Authority is power that is believed to be legitimate (rather than coercive) by those who are subjected to it. Social
influence, however, is the process by which individuals make real changes to their feelings and behaviors as a
result of interaction with others who are perceived to be similar, desirable, or expert. People adjust their beliefs
with respect to others to whom they feel similar in accordance with psychological principles such as balance.
Individuals are also influenced by the majority: when a large portion of an individual’s referent social group holds a
particular attitude, it is likely that the individual will adopt it as well. Additionally, individuals may change an
opinion under the influence of another who is perceived to be an expert in the matter at hand. French and Raven
(1959) provided an early formalization of the concept of social influence in their discussion of the bases of social
power. For French and Raven, agents of change included not just individuals and groups, but also norms and roles.
They viewed social influence as the outcome of the exertion of social power from one of five bases: reward power,
coercive power, legitimate power, expert power, or referent power. A change in reported opinion or attitude
(conformity) was considered an instance of social influence whether or not it represented a true private change.
French and Raven’s original research was concerned with situations in which a supervisor influences a worker in a
work situation. Subsequent scholarship has examined a wide variety of other social interactions, including families,
classrooms, doctors and their patients, salespeople and customers, political figures, and dating couples. Work
settings also continue to be a prominent topic for studies of social influence. Since 1959, scholars have
distinguished true social influence from forced public acceptance and from changes based on reward or coercive
power. Social researchers are still concerned with public compliance, reward power, and coercive power, but those
concerns are differentiated from social influence studies.
Current research on social influence generally uses experimental methodology and tends to fall into five main
areas:
 Minority influence in group settings
 Research on persuasion,
 Dynamic social impact theory,
 A structural approach to social influence, and
 Social influence in expectation states theory. Each is discussed below.

Social influence includes

 Conformity: Conformity is the tendency to align your attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors with those around
you. It's a powerful force that can take the form of overt social pressure or subtler unconscious influence.
 Compliance: Compliance is when an individual changes his or her behavior in response to an explicit or
implicit request made by another person. Compliance is often referred to as an active form of social
influence in that it is usually intentionally initiated by a person.
 Intense Indoctrination: Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or
a professional methodology (see doctrine).
  Indoctrination is a critical component in the transfer of cultures, customs, and traditions from one
generation to the next.
 Obedience: Obedience is compliance with commands given by an authority figure. In the 1960s, the
social psychologist Stanley Milgram did a famous research study called the obedience study. It showed
that people have a strong tendency to comply with authority figures.

Prejudice and Discrimination

Prejudice and Discrimination: by Saul McLeod published 2008.Prejudice is an unjustified or incorrect attitude
(usually negative) towards an individual based solely on the individual's membership of a social group. For example,
a person may hold prejudiced views towards a certain race or gender etc. (e.g. sexist).

Prejudice and Discrimination: Prejudice is a cultural attitude that rests on negative stereotypes about individuals or
groups because of their cultural, religious, racial, or ethnic background. Discrimination is the active denial of
desired goals from a category of persons. A category can be based on sex, ethnicity, nationality, religion, language,
or class. More recently, disadvantaged groups now also include those based on gender, age, and physical
disabilities.

Prejudice and discrimination are deeply imbedded at both the individual and societal levels. Attempts to eradicate
prejudice and discrimination must thus deal with prevailing beliefs or ideologies, and social structure.
Some of the most well-known types of prejudice include:

 Racism
 Sexism
 Classicism
 Homophobia
 Nationalism
 Religious prejudice
 Agism

Other techniques that are used to reduce prejudice include:

 Passing laws and regulations that require fair and equal treatment for all groups of people.
 Gaining public support and awareness for anti-prejudice social norms.
 Making people aware of the inconsistencies in their own beliefs.
 Increased contact with members of other social groups.

Discrimination is the behavior or actions, usually negative, towards an individual or group of people, especially on
the basis of sex/race/social class, etc. Some areas of discrimination are:

 Racial discrimination 
 Age discrimination 
 Gender Discrimination 

This article is about the cognitive process of sense together with the sensory systems, sense
organs, and sensation. For other uses, see Sense (disambiguation).

"Five senses" redirects here. For other uses, see Five senses (disambiguation).

This article may be too technical for most readers to

understand. Please help improve it to make it understandable to
non-experts, without removing the technical details. (May
2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Sensation consists of signal collection and transduction

A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering

information about the world and responding to stimuli. (For example, in the human body,
the brain which is part of the central nervous system receives signals from the senses, which
continuously receive information from the environment, interprets these signals, and causes the
body to respond, either chemically or physically.) Although traditionally around five human senses
were known (namely sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing), it is now recognized that there are
many more.[1] Senses used by non-human organisms are even greater in variety and number. During
 sensation, sense organs collect various stimuli (such as a sound or smell) for transduction, meaning
transformation into a form that can be understood by the brain. Sensation and perception are
fundamental to nearly every aspect of an organism's cognition, behavior and thought.
In organisms, a sensory organ consists of a group of interrelated sensory cells that respond to a
specific type of physical stimulus. Via cranial and spinal nerves (nerves of the Central and Peripheral
nervous systems that relay sensory information to and from the brain and body), the different types
of sensory receptor cells (such
as mechanoreceptors, photoreceptors, chemoreceptors, thermoreceptors) in sensory organs
transduct sensory information from these organs towards the central nervous system, finally arriving
at the sensory cortices in the brain, where sensory signals are processed and interpreted
(perceived).
Sensory systems, or senses, are often divided into external (exteroception) and internal
(interoception) sensory systems. Human external senses are based on the sensory organs of
the eyes, ears, skin, nose, and mouth. Internal sensation detects stimuli from internal organs and
tissues. Internal senses possessed by humans include the vestibular system (sense of
balance) sensed by the inner ear, as well as others such as spatial orientation, proprioception (body
position) and nociception (pain). Further internal senses lead to signals such
as hunger, thirst, suffocation, and nausea, or different involuntary behaviors, such as vomiting.[2][3]
[4]
 Some animals are able to detect electrical and magnetic fields, air moisture, or polarized light,
while others sense and perceive through alternative systems, such as echolocation. Sensory
modalities or sub modalities are different ways sensory information is encoded or
transduced. Multimodality integrates different senses into one unified perceptual experience. For
example, information from one sense has the potential to influence how information from another is
perceived.[5] Sensation and perception are studied by a variety of related fields, most
notably psychophysics, neurobiology, cognitive psychology, and cognitive science.

Contents

 1Definitions
o 1.1Sensory organs
o 1.2Sensory modalities
o 1.3Receptors
o 1.4Thresholds
o 1.5Signal detection theory
o 1.6Private perceptive experience
o 1.7Sensory adaptation
o 1.8Fourier analysis
o 1.9Sensory neuroscience and the biology of perception
o 1.10Multimodal perception
o 1.11Philosophy
 2Human sensation
o 2.1General
o 2.2External
o 2.3Internal
 3Nonhuman animal sensation and perception
o 3.1Human analogues
o 3.2Not human analogues
 4Plant sensation
 5Artificial sensation and perception
 6Culture
 7See also
 8References
 9External links

Definitions[edit]
Main article: Psychophysics

Sensory organs[edit]
Main articles: Human eye, Human ear, Human skin, Human nose, and Human mouth

Sensory organs are organs that sense and transduce stimuli. Humans have various sensory organs
(i.e. eyes, ears, skin, nose, and mouth) that correspond to a respective visual system (sense of
vision), auditory system (sense of hearing), somatosensory system (sense of touch), olfactory
system (sense of smell), and gustatory system (sense of taste). Those systems, in turn, contribute
to vision, hearing, touch, smell, and the ability to taste.[5][6] Internal sensation, or interoception, detects
stimuli from internal organs and tissues. Many internal sensory and perceptual systems exist in
humans, including the vestibular system (sense of balance) sensed by the inner ear and providing
the perception of spatial orientation; proprioception (body position); and nociception (pain). Further
internal chemoreception- and osmoreception-based sensory systems lead to various perceptions,
such as hunger, thirst, suffocation, and nausea, or different involuntary behaviors, such as vomiting.
[2][3][7]

Nonhuman animals experience sensation and perception, with varying levels of similarity to and
difference from humans and other animal species. For example, mammals in general have a
stronger sense of smell than humans. Some animal species lack one or more human sensory
system analogues and some have sensory systems that are not found in humans, while others
process and interpret the same sensory information in very different ways. For example, some
animals are able to detect electrical fields[8] and magnetic fields,[9] air moisture,[10] or polarized light.
[11]
 Others sense and perceive through alternative systems such as echolocation.[12][13] Recent theory
suggests that plants and artificial agents such as robots may be able to detect and interpret
environmental information in an analogous manner to animals. [14][15][16]

Sensory modalities[edit]
Main article: Sensory modalities

Sensory modality refers to the way that information is encoded, which is similar to the idea
of transduction. The main sensory modalities can be described on the basis of how each is
transduced. Listing all the different sensory modalities, which can number as many as 17, involves
separating the major senses into more specific categories, or submodalities, of the larger sense. An
individual sensory modality represents the sensation of a specific type of stimulus. For example, the
general sensation and perception of touch, which is known as somatosensation, can be separated
into light pressure, deep pressure, vibration, itch, pain, temperature, or hair movement, while the
general sensation and perception of taste can be separated into submodalities
of sweet, salty, sour, bitter, spicy, and umami, all of which are based on different chemicals binding
to sensory neurons.[17]

Receptors[edit]
Main article: Sensory receptor
Sensory receptors are the cells or structures that detect sensations. Stimuli in the environment
activate specialized receptor cells in the peripheral nervous system. During transduction, physical
stimulus is converted into action potential by receptors and transmitted towards the central nervous
system for processing.[18] Different types of stimuli are sensed by different types of receptor cells.
Receptor cells can be classified into types on the basis of three different criteria: cell type, position,
and function. Receptors can be classified structurally on the basis of cell type and their position in
relation to stimuli they sense. Receptors can further be classified functionally on the basis of
the transduction of stimuli, or how the mechanical stimulus, light, or chemical changed the
cell membrane potential.[17]
Structural receptor types[edit]
Location[edit]
One way to classify receptors is based on their location relative to the stimuli. An exteroceptor is a
receptor that is located near a stimulus of the external environment, such as the somatosensory
receptors that are located in the skin. An interoceptor is one that interprets stimuli from internal
organs and tissues, such as the receptors that sense the increase in blood pressure in
the aorta or carotid sinus.[17]
Cell type[edit]
The cells that interpret information about the environment can be either (1) a neuron that has a free
nerve ending, with dendrites embedded in tissue that would receive a sensation; (2) a neuron that
has an encapsulated ending in which the sensory nerve endings are encapsulated in connective
tissue that enhances their sensitivity; or (3) a specialized receptor cell, which has distinct structural
components that interpret a specific type of stimulus. The pain and temperature receptors in the
dermis of the skin are examples of neurons that have free nerve endings (1). Also located in the
dermis of the skin are lamellated corpuscles, neurons with encapsulated nerve endings that respond
to pressure and touch (2). The cells in the retina that respond to light stimuli are an example of a
specialized receptor (3), a photoreceptor.[17]
A transmembrane protein receptor is a protein in the cell membrane that mediates a physiological
change in a neuron, most often through the opening of ion channels or changes in the cell
signaling processes. Transmembrane receptors are activated by chemicals called ligands. For
example, a molecule in food can serve as a ligand for taste receptors. Other transmembrane
proteins, which are not accurately called receptors, are sensitive to mechanical or thermal changes.
Physical changes in these proteins increase ion flow across the membrane, and can generate
an action potential or a graded potential in the sensory neurons.[17]
Functional receptor types[edit]
A third classification of receptors is by how the receptor transduces stimuli into membrane
potential changes. Stimuli are of three general types. Some stimuli are ions
and macromolecules that affect transmembrane receptor proteins when these chemicals diffuse
across the cell membrane. Some stimuli are physical variations in the environment that affect
receptor cell membrane potentials. Other stimuli include the electromagnetic radiation from visible
light. For humans, the only electromagnetic energy that is perceived by our eyes is visible light.
Some other organisms have receptors that humans lack, such as the heat sensors of snakes, the
ultraviolet light sensors of bees, or magnetic receptors in migratory birds. [17]
Receptor cells can be further categorized on the basis of the type of stimuli they transduce. The
different types of functional receptor cell types
are mechanoreceptors, photoreceptors, chemoreceptors (osmoreceptor), thermoreceptors, electrore
ceptors (in certain mammals and fish), and nociceptors. Physical stimuli, such as pressure and
vibration, as well as the sensation of sound and body position (balance), are interpreted through a
mechanoreceptor. Photoreceptors convert light (visible electromagnetic radiation) into signals.
Chemical stimuli can be interpreted by a chemoreceptor that interprets chemical stimuli, such as an
object's taste or smell, while osmoreceptors respond to a chemical solute concentrations of body
fluids. Nociception (pain) interprets the presence of tissue damage, from sensory information from
mechano-, chemo-, and thermoreceptors. [19] Another physical stimulus that has its own type of
receptor is temperature, which is sensed through a thermoreceptor that is either sensitive to
temperatures above (heat) or below (cold) normal body temperature. [17]

Thresholds[edit]
Absolute threshold[edit]
Main article: Absolute threshold

Each sense organ (eyes or nose, for instance) requires a minimal amount of stimulation in order to
detect a stimulus. This minimum amount of stimulus is called the absolute threshold. [5] The absolute
threshold is defined as the minimum amount of stimulation necessary for the detection of a stimulus
50% of the time.[6] Absolute threshold is measured by using a method called signal detection. This
process involves presenting stimuli of varying intensities to a subject in order to determine the level
at which the subject can reliably detect stimulation in a given sense. [5]
Differential threshold[edit]
Main article: Differential threshold

Differential threshold or just noticeable difference (JDS) is the smallest detectable difference
between two stimuli, or the smallest difference in stimuli that can be judged to be different from each
other.[6] Weber's Law is an empirical law that states that the difference threshold is a constant
fraction of the comparison stimulus.[6] According to Weber's Law, bigger stimuli require larger
differences to be noticed.[5]

Human power exponents and Steven's Power Law

Magnitude estimation is a psychophysical method in which subjects assign perceived values of

given stimuli. The relationship between stimulus intensity and perceptive intensity is described
by Steven's power law.[6]

Signal detection theory[edit]

Main article: Signal detection theory

Signal detection theory quantifies the experience of the subject to the presentation of a stimulus in
the presence of noise. There is internal noise and there is external noise when it comes to signal
detection. The internal noise originates from static in the nervous system. For example, an individual
with closed eyes in a dark room still sees something—a blotchy pattern of grey with intermittent
brighter flashes—this is internal noise. External noise is the result of noise in the environment that
can interfere with the detection of the stimulus of interest. Noise is only a problem if the magnitude of
the noise is large enough to interfere with signal collection. The nervous system calculates a
criterion, or an internal threshold, for the detection of a signal in the presence of noise. If a signal is
judged to be above the criterion, thus the signal is differentiated from the noise, the signal is sensed
and perceived. Errors in signal detection can potentially lead to false positives and false negatives.
The sensory criterion might be shifted based on the importance of the detecting the signal. Shifting
of the criterion may influence the likelihood of false positives and false negatives. [6]

Private perceptive experience[edit]

Main article: Qualia

Subjective visual and auditory experiences appear to be similar across humans subjects. The same
cannot be said about taste. For example, there is a molecule called propylthiouracil (PROP) that
some humans experience as bitter, some as almost tasteless, while others experience it as
somewhere between tasteless and bitter. There is a genetic basis for this difference between
perception given the same sensory stimulus. This subjective difference in taste perception has
implications for individuals' food preferences, and consequently, health. [6]

Sensory adaptation[edit]
Main article: Sensory adaptation

When a stimulus is constant and unchanging, perceptual sensory adaptation occurs. During this
process, the subject becomes less sensitive to the stimulus. [5]

Fourier analysis[edit]
Main article: Fourier analysis

Biological auditory (hearing), vestibular and spatial, and visual systems (vision) appear to break
down real-world complex stimuli into sine wave components, through the mathematical process
called Fourier analysis. Many neurons have a strong preference for certain
sine frequency components in contrast to others. The way that simpler sounds and images
are encoded during sensation can provide insight into how perception of real-world objects happens.
[6]

Sensory neuroscience and the biology of perception[edit]

Main article: Sensory neuroscience

Perception occurs when nerves that lead from the sensory organs (e.g. eye) to the brain are
stimulated, even if that stimulation is unrelated to the target signal of the sensory organ. For
example, in the case of the eye, it does not matter whether light or something else stimulates the
optic nerve, that stimulation will results in visual perception, even if there was no visual stimulus to
begin with. (To prove this point to yourself (and if you are a human), close your eyes (preferably in a
dark room) and press gently on the outside corner of one eye through the eyelid. You will see a
visual spot toward the inside of your visual field, near your nose.) [6]
Sensory nervous system[edit]
Main article: Sensory nervous system

All stimuli received by the receptors are transduced to an action potential, which is carried along one
or more afferent neurons towards a specific area (cortex) of the brain. Just as different nerves are
dedicated to sensory and motors tasks, different areas of the brain (cortices) are similarly dedicated
to different sensory and perceptual tasks. More complex processing is accomplished across primary
cortical regions that spread beyond the primary cortices. Every nerve, sensory or motor, has its own
signal transmission speed. For example, nerves in the frog's legs have a 90 ft/s (99 km/h) signal
transmission speed, while sensory nerves in humans, transmit sensory information at speeds
between 165 ft/s (181 km/h) and 330 ft/s (362 km/h).[6]

The human sensory and perceptual system[6][17]

Sen
Sensor Primary
Physical sory Cranial Cerebra
y associated perception(s Name
stimulus orga nerve(s) l cortex
system )
n

Eye Visual Visual

Light Optic (II) Visual perception Vision
s system cortex

Hearin
Auditory Vestibulococ Auditory g
Sound Ears Auditory perception
system hlear (VIII) cortex (auditi
on)

Balanc
Vestibul
Gravity and acc Inne Vestibulococ Vestibul e
ar Equilibrioception
eleration r ear hlear (VIII) ar cortex (equili
system
brium)

Olfactor Olfactory perception, Smell

Chemical Nos Olfactor
y Olfactory (I) Gustatory perception (olfacti
substance e y cortex
system (taste or flavor)[20] on)

Facial
Gustator Taste
Chemical Mou (VII), Glosso Gustator Gustatory perception
y (gustat
substance th pharyngeal y cortex (taste or flavor)
system ion)
(IX)

Somato Trigeminal Somato Tactile Touch

Position, motion
Skin sensory (V), sensory perception (mechanorece (tactiti
, temperature
system Glossophary cortex ption, thermoception) on)
ngeal (IX)
 + Spinal
nerves

Multimodal perception[edit]
Main article: Multimodal integration

Perceptual experience is often multimodal. Multimodality integrates different senses into one unified
perceptual experience. Information from one sense has the potential to influence how information
from another is perceived.[5] Multimodal perception is qualitatively different from unimodal perception.
There has been a growing body of evidence since the mid-1990s on the neural correlates of
multimodal perception.[21]

Philosophy[edit]
Main article: Philosophy of perception

The philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status
of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world.
Historical inquiries into the underlying mechanisms of sensation and perception have led early
researchers to subscribe to various philosophical interpretations of perception and the mind,
including panpsychism, dualism, and materialism. The majority of modern scientists who study
sensation and perception take on a materialistic view of the mind. [6]

Human sensation[edit]
General[edit]
Absolute threshold[edit]
Some examples of human absolute thresholds for the nine to 21 external senses.[22]

Sense Absolute threshold (obsolete system of signal detection used)

Stars at night; candlelight 48 km (30 mi) away on a dark and clear

Vision
night

Hearing Ticking of a watch 6 m (20 ft) away, in an otherwise silent environment

Vestibular Tilt of less than 30 seconds (3 degrees) of a clock's minute hand

Touch A wing of a fly falling on the cheek from a height of 7.6 cm (3 inches)

Taste A teaspoon of sugar in 7.5 liters (2 gallons) of water

 Smell A drop of perfume in a volume of the size of three rooms

Multimodal perception[edit]
Humans respond more strongly to multimodal stimuli compared to the sum of each single modality
together, an effect called the superadditive effect of multisensory integration.[5] Neurons that respond
to both visual and auditory stimuli have been identified in the superior temporal sulcus.
[21]
 Additionally, multimodal "what" and "where" pathways have been proposed for auditory and tactile
stimuli.[23]

External[edit]
External receptors that respond to stimuli from outside the body are called exteroceptors.[2] Human
external sensation is based on the sensory organs of the eyes, ears, skin, vestibular system, nose,
and mouth, which contribute, respectively, to the
sensory perceptions of vision, hearing, touch, spatial orientation, smell, and taste. Smell and taste
are both responsible for identifying molecules and thus both are types of chemoreceptors. Both
olfaction (smell) and gustation (taste) require the transduction of chemical stimuli into electrical
potentials.[5][6]
Visual system (vision)[edit]
Main article: Visual system

The visual system, or sense of sight, is based on the transduction of light stimuli received through
the eyes and contributes to visual perception. The visual system detects light on photoreceptors in
the retina of each eye that generates electrical nerve impulses for the perception of varying colors
and brightness. There are two types of photoreceptors: rods and cones. Rods are very sensitive to
light but do not distinguish colors. Cones distinguish colors but are less sensitive to dim light. [17]
At the molecular level, visual stimuli cause changes in the photopigment molecule that lead to
changes in membrane potential of the photoreceptor cell. A single unit of light is called a photon,
which is described in physics as a packet of energy with properties of both a particle and a wave.
The energy of a photon is represented by its wavelength, with each wavelength of visible light
corresponding to a particular color. Visible light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength
between 380 and 720 nm. Wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation longer than 720 nm fall into
the infrared range, whereas wavelengths shorter than 380 nm fall into the ultraviolet range. Light
with a wavelength of 380 nm is blue whereas light with a wavelength of 720 nm is dark red. All other
colors fall between red and blue at various points along the wavelength scale. [17]
The three types of cone opsins, being sensitive to different wavelengths of light, provide us with
color vision. By comparing the activity of the three different cones, the brain can extract color
information from visual stimuli. For example, a bright blue light that has a wavelength of
approximately 450 nm would activate the "red" cones minimally, the "green" cones marginally, and
the "blue" cones predominantly. The relative activation of the three different cones is calculated by
the brain, which perceives the color as blue. However, cones cannot react to low-intensity light, and
rods do not sense the color of light. Therefore, our low-light vision is—in essence—in grayscale. In
other words, in a dark room, everything appears as a shade of gray. If you think that you can see
colors in the dark, it is most likely because your brain knows what color something is and is relying
on that memory.[17]
There is some disagreement as to whether the visual system consists of one, two, or three
submodalities. Neuroanatomists generally regard it as two submodalities, given that different
receptors are responsible for the perception of color and brightness. Some argue [citation
needed]
 that stereopsis, the perception of depth using both eyes, also constitutes a sense, but it is
generally regarded as a cognitive (that is, post-sensory) function of the visual cortex of the brain
where patterns and objects in images are recognized and interpreted based on previously learned
information. This is called visual memory.
The inability to see is called blindness. Blindness may result from damage to the eyeball, especially
to the retina, damage to the optic nerve that connects each eye to the brain, and/or
from stroke (infarcts in the brain). Temporary or permanent blindness can be caused by poisons or
medications. People who are blind from degradation or damage to the visual cortex, but still have
functional eyes, are actually capable of some level of vision and reaction to visual stimuli but not a
conscious perception; this is known as blindsight. People with blindsight are usually not aware that
they are reacting to visual sources, and instead just unconsciously adapt their behavior to the
stimulus.
On February 14, 2013, researchers developed a neural implant that gives rats the ability to
sense infrared light which for the first time provides living creatures with new abilities, instead of
simply replacing or augmenting existing abilities.[24]
Visual perception in psychology[edit]
Main article: Gestalt psychology

According to Gestalt Psychology, people perceive the whole of something even if it is not there. The
Gestalt's Law of Organization states that people have seven factors that help to group what is seen
into patterns or groups: Common Fate, Similarity, Proximity, Closure, Symmetry, Continuity, and
Past Experience.[25]
The Law of Common fate says that objects are led along the smoothest path. People follow the trend
of motion as the lines/dots flow.[26]
The Law of Similarity refers to the grouping of images or objects that are similar to each other in
some aspect. This could be due to shade, colour, size, shape, or other qualities you could
distinguish.[27]
The Law of Proximity states that our minds like to group based on how close objects are to each
other. We may see 42 objects in a group, but we can also perceive three groups of two lines with
seven objects in each line.[26]
The Law of Closure is the idea that we as humans still see a full picture even if there are gaps within
that picture. There could be gaps or parts missing from a section of a shape, but we would still
perceive the shape as whole. [27]
The Law of Symmetry refers to a person's preference to see symmetry around a central point. An
example would be when we use parentheses in writing. We tend to perceive all of the words in the
parentheses as one section instead of individual words within the parentheses. [27]
The Law of Continuity tells us that objects are grouped together by their elements and then
perceived as a whole. This usually happens when we see overlapping objects. We will see the
overlapping objects with no interruptions. [27]
The Law of Past Experience refers to the tendency humans have to categorize objects according to
past experiences under certain circumstances. If two objects are usually perceived together or within
close proximity of each other the Law of Past Experience is usually seen. [26]
Auditory system (hearing)[edit]
Main article: Auditory system
Hearing, or audition, is the transduction of sound waves into a neural signal that is made possible by
the structures of the ear. The large, fleshy structure on the lateral aspect of the head is known as
the auricle. At the end of the auditory canal is the tympanic membrane, or ear drum, which vibrates
after it is struck by sound waves. The auricle, ear canal, and tympanic membrane are often referred
to as the external ear. The middle ear consists of a space spanned by three small bones called
the ossicles. The three ossicles are the malleus, incus, and stapes, which are Latin names that
roughly translate to hammer, anvil, and stirrup. The malleus is attached to the tympanic membrane
and articulates with the incus. The incus, in turn, articulates with the stapes. The stapes is then
attached to the inner ear, where the sound waves will be transduced into a neural signal. The middle
ear is connected to the pharynx through the Eustachian tube, which helps equilibrate air pressure
across the tympanic membrane. The tube is normally closed but will pop open when the muscles of
the pharynx contract during swallowing or yawning.[17]
Mechanoreceptors turn motion into electrical nerve pulses, which are located in the inner ear. Since
sound is vibration, propagating through a medium such as air, the detection of these vibrations, that
is the sense of the hearing, is a mechanical sense because these vibrations are mechanically
conducted from the eardrum through a series of tiny bones to hair-like fibers in the inner ear, which
detect mechanical motion of the fibers within a range of about 20 to 20,000 hertz,[28] with substantial
variation between individuals. Hearing at high frequencies declines with an increase in age. Inability
to hear is called deafness or hearing impairment. Sound can also be detected as vibrations
conducted through the body by tactition. Lower frequencies that can be heard are detected this way.
Some deaf people are able to determine the direction and location of vibrations picked up through
the feet.[29]
Studies pertaining to Audition started to increase in number towards the latter end of the nineteenth
century. During this time, many laboratories in the United States began to create new models,
diagrams, and instruments that all pertained to the ear. [30]
There is a branch of Cognitive Psychology dedicated strictly to Audition. They call it Auditory
Cognitive Psychology. The main point is to understand why humans are able to use sound in
thinking outside of actually saying it.[31]
Relating to Auditory Cognitive Psychology is Psychoacoustics. Psychoacoustics is more pointed to
people interested in music.[32] Haptics, a word used to refer to both taction and kinesthesia, has many
parallels with psychoacoustics.[32] Most research around these two are focused on the instrument, the
listener, and the player of the instrument.[32]
Somatosensory system (touch)[edit]
Main article: Somatosensory system

Somatosensation is considered a general sense, as opposed to the special senses discussed in this
section. Somatosensation is the group of sensory modalities that are associated with touch and
interoception. The modalities of somatosensation include pressure, vibration, light
touch, tickle, itch, temperature, pain, kinesthesia.[17] Somatosensation, also called tactition (adjectival
form: tactile) is a perception resulting from activation of neural receptors, generally in
the skin including hair follicles, but also in the tongue, throat, and mucosa. A variety
of pressure receptors respond to variations in pressure (firm, brushing, sustained, etc.). The touch
sense of itching caused by insect bites or allergies involves special itch-specific neurons in the skin
and spinal cord.[33] The loss or impairment of the ability to feel anything touched is called
tactile anesthesia. Paresthesia is a sensation of tingling, pricking, or numbness of the skin that may
result from nerve damage and may be permanent or temporary.
Two types of somatosensory signals that are transduced by free nerve endings are pain and
temperature. These two modalities use thermoreceptors and nociceptors to transduce temperature
and pain stimuli, respectively. Temperature receptors are stimulated when local temperatures differ
from body temperature. Some thermoreceptors are sensitive to just cold and others to just heat.
Nociception is the sensation of potentially damaging stimuli. Mechanical, chemical, or thermal stimuli
beyond a set threshold will elicit painful sensations. Stressed or damaged tissues release chemicals
that activate receptor proteins in the nociceptors. For example, the sensation of heat associated with
spicy foods involves capsaicin, the active molecule in hot peppers. [17]
Low frequency vibrations are sensed by mechanoreceptors called Merkel cells, also known as type I
cutaneous mechanoreceptors. Merkel cells are located in the stratum basale of the epidermis. Deep
pressure and vibration is transduced by lamellated (Pacinian) corpuscles, which are receptors with
encapsulated endings found deep in the dermis, or subcutaneous tissue. Light touch is transduced
by the encapsulated endings known as tactile (Meissner) corpuscles. Follicles are also wrapped in
a plexus of nerve endings known as the hair follicle plexus. These nerve endings detect the
movement of hair at the surface of the skin, such as when an insect may be walking along the skin.
Stretching of the skin is transduced by stretch receptors known as bulbous corpuscles. Bulbous
corpuscles are also known as Ruffini corpuscles, or type II cutaneous mechanoreceptors. [17]
The heat receptors are sensitive to infrared radiation and can occur in specialized organs, for
instance in pit vipers. The thermoceptors in the skin are quite different from
the homeostatic thermoceptors in the brain (hypothalamus), which provide feedback on internal body
temperature.
Gustatory system (taste)[edit]
Main article: Gustatory system

The gustatory system or the sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for
the perception of taste (flavor).[34] A few recognized submodalities exist within
taste: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. Very recent research has suggested that there may also
be a sixth taste submodality for fats, or lipids.[17] The sense of taste is often confused with the
perception of flavor, which is the results of the multimodal integration of gustatory (taste) and
olfactory (smell) sensations.[35]

Philippe Mercier - The Sense of Taste - Google Art Project

Within the structure of the lingual papillae are taste buds that contain specialized gustatory receptor
cells for the transduction of taste stimuli. These receptor cells are sensitive to the chemicals
contained within foods that are ingested, and they release neurotransmitters based on the amount of
the chemical in the food. Neurotransmitters from the gustatory cells can activate sensory neurons in
the facial, glossopharyngeal, and vagus cranial nerves.[17]
Salty and sour taste submodalities are triggered by the cations Na+ and H+, respectively. The other
taste modalities result from food molecules binding to a G protein–coupled receptor. A G protein
signal transduction system ultimately leads to depolarization of the gustatory cell. The sweet taste is
the sensitivity of gustatory cells to the presence of glucose (or sugar substitutes) dissolved in
the saliva. Bitter taste is similar to sweet in that food molecules bind to G protein–coupled receptors.
The taste known as umami is often referred to as the savory taste. Like sweet and bitter, it is based
on the activation of G protein–coupled receptors by a specific molecule. [17]
Once the gustatory cells are activated by the taste molecules, they release neurotransmitters onto
the dendrites of sensory neurons. These neurons are part of the facial and glossopharyngeal cranial
nerves, as well as a component within the vagus nerve dedicated to the gag reflex. The facial nerve
connects to taste buds in the anterior third of the tongue. The glossopharyngeal nerve connects to
taste buds in the posterior two thirds of the tongue. The vagus nerve connects to taste buds in the
extreme posterior of the tongue, verging on the pharynx, which are more sensitive to noxious
stimuli such as bitterness.[17]
Flavor depends on odor, texture, and temperature as well as on taste. Humans receive tastes
through sensory organs called taste buds, or gustatory calyculi, concentrated on the upper surface
of the tongue. Other tastes such as calcium[36][37] and free fatty acids[38] may also be basic tastes but
have yet to receive widespread acceptance. The inability to taste is called ageusia.
There is a rare phenomenon when it comes to the Gustatory sense. It is called Lexical-Gustatory
Synesthesia. Lexical-Gustatory Synesthesia is when people can "taste" words. [39] They have reported
having flavor sensations they aren't actually eating. When they read words, hear words, or even
imagine words. They have reported not only simple flavors, but textures, complex flavors, and
temperatures as well.[40]
Olfactory system (smell)[edit]
Main article: Olfactory system

Like the sense of taste, the sense of smell, or the olfactiory system, is also responsive to chemical
stimuli.[17] Unlike taste, there are hundreds of olfactory receptors (388 functional ones according to
one 2003 study[41]), each binding to a particular molecular feature. Odor molecules possess a variety
of features and, thus, excite specific receptors more or less strongly. This combination of excitatory
signals from different receptors makes up what humans perceive as the molecule's smell. [42]
The olfactory receptor neurons are located in a small region within the superior nasal cavity. This
region is referred to as the olfactory epithelium and contains bipolar sensory neurons. Each olfactory
sensory neuron has dendrites that extend from the apical surface of the epithelium into
the mucus lining the cavity. As airborne molecules are inhaled through the nose, they pass over the
olfactory epithelial region and dissolve into the mucus. These odorant molecules bind to proteins that
keep them dissolved in the mucus and help transport them to the olfactory dendrites. The odorant–
protein complex binds to a receptor protein within the cell membrane of an olfactory dendrite. These
receptors are G protein–coupled, and will produce a graded membrane potential in the olfactory
neurons.[17]
The sense of smell Bequest of Mrs E.G. Elgar, 1945 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

In the brain, olfaction is processed by the olfactory cortex. Olfactory receptor neurons in the nose
differ from most other neurons in that they die and regenerate on a regular basis. The inability to
smell is called anosmia. Some neurons in the nose are specialized to detect pheromones.[43] Loss of
the sense of smell can result in food tasting bland. A person with an impaired sense of smell may
require additional spice and seasoning levels for food to be tasted. Anosmia may also be related to
some presentations of mild depression, because the loss of enjoyment of food may lead to a general
sense of despair. The ability of olfactory neurons to replace themselves decreases with age, leading
to age-related anosmia. This explains why some elderly people salt their food more than younger
people do.[17]
Causes of Olfactory dysfunction can be caused by age, exposure to toxic chemicals, viral infections,
epilepsy, some sort of neurodegenerative disease, head trauma, or as a result of another disorder.
[5]
As studies in olfaction have continued, there has been a positive correlation to its dysfunction or
degeneration and early signs of Alzheimers and sporadic Parkinson's disease. Many patients don't
notice the decline in smell before being tested. In Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimers, an olfactory
deficit is present in 85 to 90% of the early onset cases. [5]There is evidence that the decline of this
sense can precede the Alzheimers or Parkinson's Disease by a couple years. Although the deficit is
present in these two diseases, as well as others, it is important to make note that the severity or
magnitude vary with every disease. This has brought to light some suggestions that olfactory testing
could be used in some cases to aid in differentiating many of the neurodegenerative diseases. [5]
Those who were born without a sense of smell or have a damaged sense of smell usually complain
about 1, or more, of 3 things. Our olfactory sense is also used as a warning against bad food. If the
sense of smell is damaged or not there, it can lead to a person contracting food poisoning more
often. Not having a sense of smell can also lead to damaged relationships or insecurities within the
relationships because of the inability for the person to not smell body odor. Lastly, smell influences
how food and drink taste. When the olfactory sense is damaged, the satisfaction from eating and
drinking is not as prominent.

Internal[edit]
Main article: Interoception
Vestibular system (balance)[edit]
Main article: Vestibular system

The vestibular sense, or sense of balance (equilibrium), is the sense that contributes to the
perception of balance (equilibrium), spatial orientation, direction, or acceleration (equilibrioception).
Along with audition, the inner ear is responsible for encoding information about equilibrium. A
similar mechanoreceptor—a hair cell with stereocilia—senses head position, head movement, and
whether our bodies are in motion. These cells are located within the vestibule of the inner ear. Head
position is sensed by the utricle and saccule, whereas head movement is sensed by the semicircular
canals. The neural signals generated in the vestibular ganglion are transmitted through
the vestibulocochlear nerve to the brain stem and cerebellum.[17]
The semicircular canals are three ring-like extensions of the vestibule. One is oriented in the
horizontal plane, whereas the other two are oriented in the vertical plane. The anterior and posterior
vertical canals are oriented at approximately 45 degrees relative to the sagittal plane. The base of
each semicircular canal, where it meets with the vestibule, connects to an enlarged region known as
the ampulla. The ampulla contains the hair cells that respond to rotational movement, such as
turning the head while saying "no". The stereocilia of these hair cells extend into the cupula, a
membrane that attaches to the top of the ampulla. As the head rotates in a plane parallel to the
semicircular canal, the fluid lags, deflecting the cupula in the direction opposite to the head
movement. The semicircular canals contain several ampullae, with some oriented horizontally and
others oriented vertically. By comparing the relative movements of both the horizontal and vertical
ampullae, the vestibular system can detect the direction of most head movements within three-
dimensional (3D) space.[17]
The vestibular nerve conducts information from sensory receptors in three ampulla that sense
motion of fluid in three semicircular canals caused by three-dimensional rotation of the head. The
vestibular nerve also conducts information from the utricle and the saccule, which contain hair-like
sensory receptors that bend under the weight of otoliths (which are small crystals of calcium
carbonate) that provide the inertia needed to detect head rotation, linear acceleration, and the
direction of gravitational force.
Proprioception[edit]
Proprioception, the kinesthetic sense, provides the parietal cortex of the brain with information on the
movement and relative positions of the parts of the body. Neurologists test this sense by telling
patients to close their eyes and touch their own nose with the tip of a finger. Assuming proper
proprioceptive function, at no time will the person lose awareness of where the hand actually is,
even though it is not being detected by any of the other senses. Proprioception and touch are related
in subtle ways, and their impairment results in surprising and deep deficits in perception and action.
[44]

Pain[edit]
Nociception (physiological pain) signals nerve-damage or damage to tissue. The three types of pain
receptors are cutaneous (skin), somatic (joints and bones), and visceral (body organs). It was
previously believed that pain was simply the overloading of pressure receptors, but research in the
first half of the 20th century indicated that pain is a distinct phenomenon that intertwines with all of
the other senses, including touch. Pain was once considered an entirely subjective experience, but
recent studies show that pain is registered in the anterior cingulate gyrus of the brain.[45] The main
function of pain is to attract our attention to dangers and motivate us to avoid them. For example,
humans avoid touching a sharp needle, or hot object, or extending an arm beyond a safe limit
because it is dangerous, and thus hurts. Without pain, people could do many dangerous things
without being aware of the dangers.
Other internal sensations and perceptions[edit]
An internal sensation and perception also known as interoception [46] is "any sense that is normally
stimulated from within the body".[47] These involve numerous sensory receptors in internal organs.
Interoception is thought to be atypical in clinical conditions such as alexithymia.[48] Some examples of
specific receptors are:

 Hunger is governed by a set of brain structures (e.g., the hypothalamus) that are responsible
for energy homeostasis.[49]
 Pulmonary stretch receptors are found in the lungs and control the respiratory rate.
 Peripheral chemoreceptors in the brain monitor the carbon dioxide and oxygen levels in the
brain to give a perception of suffocation if carbon dioxide levels get too high.[50]
 The chemoreceptor trigger zone is an area of the medulla in the brain that receives inputs
from blood-borne drugs or hormones, and communicates with the vomiting center.
 Chemoreceptors in the circulatory system also measure salt levels and prompt thirst if they get
too high; they can also respond to high blood sugar levels in diabetics.
 Cutaneous receptors in the skin not only respond to touch, pressure, temperature and vibration,
but also respond to vasodilation in the skin such as blushing.
 Stretch receptors in the gastrointestinal tract sense gas distension that may result in colic pain.
 Stimulation of sensory receptors in the esophagus result in sensations felt in the throat
when swallowing, vomiting, or during acid reflux.
 Sensory receptors in pharynx mucosa, similar to touch receptors in the skin, sense foreign
objects such as mucous and food that may result in a gag reflex and corresponding gagging
sensation.
 Stimulation of sensory receptors in the urinary bladder and rectum may result in perceptions of
fullness.
 Stimulation of stretch sensors that sense dilation of various blood vessels may result in pain, for
example headache caused by vasodilation of brain arteries.
 Cardioception refers to the perception of the activity of the heart. [51][52][53][54]
 Opsins and direct DNA damage in melanocytes and keratinocytes can
sense ultraviolet radiation, which plays a role in pigmentation and sunburn.
 Baroreceptors relay blood pressure information to the brain and maintain proper homeostatic
blood pressure.
The perception of time is also sometimes called a sense, though not tied to a specific receptor.

Nonhuman animal sensation and perception[edit]

Human analogues[edit]
Other living organisms have receptors to sense the world around them, including many of the
senses listed above for humans. However, the mechanisms and capabilities vary widely.
Smell[edit]
An example of smell in non-mammals is that of sharks, which combine their keen sense of smell with
timing to determine the direction of a smell. They follow the nostril that first detected the smell.
[55]
 Insects have olfactory receptors on their antennae. Although it is unknown to the degree and
magnitude which non-human mammals can smell better than humans, [56] humans are known to have
far fewer olfactory receptors than mice, and humans have also accumulated more genetic
mutations in their olfactory receptors than other primates.[57]
Vomeronasal organ[edit]
Many animals (salamanders, reptiles, mammals) have a vomeronasal organ[58] that is connected with
the mouth cavity. In mammals it is mainly used to detect pheromones of marked territory, trails, and
sexual state. Reptiles like snakes and monitor lizards make extensive use of it as a smelling organ
by transferring scent molecules to the vomeronasal organ with the tips of the forked tongue. In
reptiles the vomeronasal organ is commonly referred to as Jacobson's organ. In mammals, it is often
associated with a special behavior called flehmen characterized by uplifting of the lips. The organ
is vestigial in humans, because associated neurons have not been found that give any sensory input
in humans.[59]
Taste[edit]
Flies and butterflies have taste organs on their feet, allowing them to taste anything they land
on. Catfish have taste organs across their entire bodies, and can taste anything they touch, including
chemicals in the water.[60]
Vision[edit]
Cats have the ability to see in low light, which is due to muscles surrounding their irides–which
contract and expand their pupils–as well as to the tapetum lucidum, a reflective membrane that
optimizes the image. Pit vipers, pythons and some boas have organs that allow them to
detect infrared light, such that these snakes are able to sense the body heat of their prey.
The common vampire bat may also have an infrared sensor on its nose.[61] It has been found
that birds and some other animals are tetrachromats and have the ability to see in
the ultraviolet down to 300 nanometers. Bees and dragonflies[62] are also able to see in the
ultraviolet. Mantis shrimps can perceive both polarized light and multispectral images and have
twelve distinct kinds of color receptors, unlike humans which have three kinds and most mammals
which have two kinds.[63]
Cephalopods have the ability to change color using chromatophores in their skin. Researchers
believe that opsins in the skin can sense different wavelengths of light and help the creatures
choose a coloration that camouflages them, in addition to light input from the eyes. [64] Other
researchers hypothesize that cephalopod eyes in species which only have a single photoreceptor
protein may use chromatic aberration to turn monochromatic vision into color vision, [65] explaining
pupils shaped like the letter U, the letter W, or a dumbbell, as well as explaining the need for colorful
mating displays.[66] Some cephalopods can distinguish the polarization of light.
Spatial orientation[edit]
Many invertebrates have a statocyst, which is a sensor for acceleration and orientation that works
very differently from the mammalian's semi-circular canals.

Not human analogues[edit]

In addition, some animals have senses that humans do not, including the following:
Magnetoception[edit]
Magnetoception (or magnetoreception) is the ability to detect the direction one is facing based on the
Earth's magnetic field. Directional awareness is most commonly observed in birds, which rely on
their magnetic sense to navigate during migration. [67][68][69][70] It has also been observed in insects such
as bees. Cattle make use of magnetoception to align themselves in a north–south direction.
[71]
 Magnetotactic bacteria build miniature magnets inside themselves and use them to determine
their orientation relative to the Earth's magnetic field. [72][73] There has been some recent (tentative)
research suggesting that the Rhodopsin in the human eye, which responds particularly well to blue
light, can facilitate magnetoception in humans. [74]
Echolocation[edit]
Main article: Animal echolocation

Certain animals, including bats and cetaceans, have the ability to determine orientation to other

objects through interpretation of reflected sound (like sonar). They most often use this to navigate
through poor lighting conditions or to identify and track prey. There is currently an uncertainty
whether this is simply an extremely developed post-sensory interpretation of auditory perceptions or
it actually constitutes a separate sense. Resolution of the issue will require brain scans of animals
while they actually perform echolocation, a task that has proven difficult in practice.
Blind people report they are able to navigate and in some cases identify an object by interpreting
reflected sounds (especially their own footsteps), a phenomenon known as human echolocation.
Electroreception[edit]
Electroreception (or electroception) is the ability to detect electric fields. Several species of
fish, sharks, and rays have the capacity to sense changes in electric fields in their immediate vicinity.
For cartilaginous fish this occurs through a specialized organ called the Ampullae of Lorenzini. Some
fish passively sense changing nearby electric fields; some generate their own weak electric fields,
and sense the pattern of field potentials over their body surface; and some use these electric field
generating and sensing capacities for social communication. The mechanisms by which
electroceptive fish construct a spatial representation from very small differences in field potentials
involve comparisons of spike latencies from different parts of the fish's body.
The only orders of mammals that are known to demonstrate electroception are
the dolphin and monotreme orders. Among these mammals, the platypus[75] has the most acute
sense of electroception.
A dolphin can detect electric fields in water using electroreceptors in vibrissal crypts arrayed in pairs
on its snout and which evolved from whisker motion sensors. [76] These electroreceptors can detect
electric fields as weak as 4.6 microvolts per centimeter, such as those generated by contracting
muscles and pumping gills of potential prey. This permits the dolphin to locate prey from the seafloor
where sediment limits visibility and echolocation.
Spiders have been shown to detect electric fields to determine a suitable time to extend web for
'ballooning'.[77]
Body modification enthusiasts have experimented with magnetic implants to attempt to replicate this
sense.[78] However, in general humans (and it is presumed other mammals) can detect electric fields
only indirectly by detecting the effect they have on hairs. An electrically charged balloon, for
instance, will exert a force on human arm hairs, which can be felt through tactition and identified as
coming from a static charge (and not from wind or the like). This is not electroreception, as it is a
post-sensory cognitive action.
Hygroreception[edit]
Hygroreception is the ability to detect changes in the moisture content of the environment. [10][79]
Infrared sensing[edit]
Main article: Infrared sensing in snakes

The ability to sense infrared thermal radiation evolved independently in various families of snakes.

Essentially, it allows these reptiles to "see" radiant heat at wavelengths between 5 and 30 μm to a
degree of accuracy such that a blind rattlesnake can target vulnerable body parts of the prey at
which it strikes.[80] It was previously thought that the organs evolved primarily as prey detectors, but it
is now believed that it may also be used in thermoregulatory decision making. [81] The facial pit
underwent parallel evolution in pitvipers and some boas and pythons, having evolved once in
pitvipers and multiple times in boas and pythons.[82][verification needed] The electrophysiology of the structure is
similar between the two lineages, but they differ in gross structural anatomy. Most superficially,
pitvipers possess one large pit organ on either side of the head, between the eye and the nostril
(Loreal pit), while boas and pythons have three or more comparatively smaller pits lining the upper
and sometimes the lower lip, in or between the scales. Those of the pitvipers are the more
advanced, having a suspended sensory membrane as opposed to a simple pit structure. Within the
family Viperidae, the pit organ is seen only in the subfamily Crotalinae: the pitvipers. The organ is
used extensively to detect and target endothermic prey such as rodents and birds, and it was
previously assumed that the organ evolved specifically for that purpose. However, recent evidence
shows that the pit organ may also be used for thermoregulation. According to Krochmal et al.,
pitvipers can use their pits for thermoregulatory decision-making while true vipers (vipers who do not
contain heat-sensing pits) cannot.
In spite of its detection of IR light, the pits' IR detection mechanism is not similar to photoreceptors –
while photoreceptors detect light via photochemical reactions, the protein in the pits of snakes is in
fact a temperature-sensitive ion channel. It senses infrared signals through a mechanism involving
warming of the pit organ, rather than a chemical reaction to light. [83] This is consistent with the thin pit
membrane, which allows incoming IR radiation to quickly and precisely warm a given ion channel
and trigger a nerve impulse, as well as vascularize the pit membrane in order to rapidly cool the ion
channel back to its original "resting" or "inactive" temperature. [83]
Other[edit]
Pressure detection uses the organ of Weber, a system consisting of three appendages of vertebrae
transferring changes in shape of the gas bladder to the middle ear. It can be used to regulate the
buoyancy of the fish. Fish like the weather fish and other loaches are also known to respond to low
pressure areas but they lack a swim bladder.
Current detection is a detection system of water currents, consisting mostly of vortices, found in
the lateral line of fish and aquatic forms of amphibians. The lateral line is also sensitive to low-
frequency vibrations. The mechanoreceptors are hair cells, the same mechanoreceptors for
vestibular sense and hearing. It is used primarily for navigation, hunting, and schooling. The
receptors of the electrical sense are modified hair cells of the lateral line system.
Polarized light direction/detection is used by bees to orient themselves, especially on cloudy
days. Cuttlefish, some beetles, and mantis shrimp can also perceive the polarization of light. Most
sighted humans can in fact learn to roughly detect large areas of polarization by an effect
called Haidinger's brush; however, this is considered an entoptic phenomenon rather than a
separate sense.
Slit sensillae of spiders detect mechanical strain in the exoskeleton, providing information on force
and vibrations.

Plant sensation[edit]
Main article: Plant perception (physiology)

By using a variety of sense receptors, plants sense light, temperature, humidity, chemical
substances, chemical gradients, reorientation, magnetic fields, infections, tissue damage and
mechanical pressure. The absence of a nervous system notwithstanding, plants interpret and
respond to these stimuli by a variety of hormonal and cell-to-cell communication pathways that result
in movement, morphological changes and physiological state alterations at the organism level, that
is, result in plant behavior. Such physiological and cognitive functions are generally not believed to
give rise to mental phenomena or qualia, however, as these are typically considered the product of
nervous system activity. The emergence of mental phenomena from the activity of systems
functionally or computationally analogous to that of nervous systems is, however, a hypothetical
possibility explored by some schools of thought in the philosophy of mind field, such
as functionalism and computationalism.
However, plants can perceive the world around them, [14] and might be able to emit airborne sounds
similar to "screaming" when stressed. Those noises could not be detectable by human ears, but
organisms with a hearing range that can hear ultrasonic frequencies—like mice, bats or perhaps
other plants—could hear the plants' cries from as far as 15 feet (4.6 m) away.[84]

Artificial sensation and perception[edit]

Main article: Machine perception

Machine perception is the capability of a computer system to interpret data in a manner that is

similar to the way humans use their senses to relate to the world around them. [15][16][85] Computers take
in and respond to their environment through attached hardware. Until recently, input was limited to a
keyboard, joystick or a mouse, but advances in technology, both in hardware and software, have
allowed computers to take in sensory input in a way similar to humans.[15][16]

Culture[edit]
Further information: Five wits, Āyatana, and Indriya

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In the time of William Shakespeare, there were commonly reckoned to be five wits or five senses.
[86]
 At that time, the words "sense" and "wit" were synonyms, [86] so the senses were known as the five
outward wits.[87][88] This traditional concept of five senses is common today.
The traditional five senses are enumerated as the "five material faculties" (pañcannaṃ indriyānaṃ
avakanti) in Hindu literature. They appear in allegorical representation as early as in the Katha
Upanishad (roughly 6th century BC), as five horses drawing the "chariot" of the body, guided by the
mind as "chariot driver".
Depictions of the five traditional senses as allegory became a popular subject for seventeenth-
century artists, especially among Dutch and Flemish Baroque painters. A typical example is Gérard
de Lairesse's Allegory of the Five Senses (1668), in which each of the figures in the main group
alludes to a sense: Sight is the reclining boy with a convex mirror, hearing is the cupid-like boy with
a triangle, smell is represented by the girl with flowers, taste is represented by the woman with the
fruit, and touch is represented by the woman holding the bird.
In Buddhist philosophy, Ayatana or "sense-base" includes the mind as a sense organ, in addition to
the traditional five. This addition to the commonly acknowledged senses may arise from the
psychological orientation involved in Buddhist thought and practice. The mind considered by itself is
seen as the principal gateway to a different spectrum of phenomena that differ from the physical
sense data. This way of viewing the human sense system indicates the importance of internal
sources of sensation and perception that complements our experience of the external world. [citation needed]
Revised Questions

1. Define sensory Threshold.

2. Mention the differences compliance and conformity.
3. What is social cognition and behavior, elaborate the process of social cognition. Explain in brief: attitude,
social influence, prejudice and discrimination. (10)
4. Define conformity?
5. What is perpetual distortion?
6. Define attitude. Explain how attitudes are formed along its types. (10)
7. What is social influence? How prejudices are organized? What are the techniques that can reduce them?
Explain. (10)
8. How does sense of vision transmit to the brain? What are illusions? Give two examples. (10)
9. What is Gestalt’s principle of organization? Explain with suitable example. (10)
10. Distinguish Sensation and perception.
11. Define Habituation and Adaptation.
12. Explain Subliminal and Extrasensory perception.
13. Briefly explain the concept of perception. (10)
14.
Perception Illusion

Unit: 4

Learning

Learning is referred to as a relatively permanent change in behavior (or behavior potential) that results from
experience or practice.

Classical conditioning by Ivan Pavlov states that learning involves forming association between two stimuli. The
learner associates previously neutral stimulus (CS) with a stimulus (UCS) that elicits a natural response (UCR).
After conditioning the CS acquires the capacity to elicit a response similar to the UCR.
Thorndike in his law of effect theorized that responses that satisfy are more likely to be repeated while those that
are not satisfying are less likely to be repeated.

Operant conditioning explains how voluntary responses are strengthened or weakened depending on positive or
negative consequences. In operant conditioning the organism performs a behavior deliberately in order to produce a
desirable outcome.

Consequences of behavior are termed as reinforcements. The types of Reinforcement and the schedules of
reinforcement will decide how quickly a behavior is learnt and how long it would stay.

Albert Bandura who put forth the observational learning theory says we learn by watching others. Those whose
behavior is observed are called Models. If the model’s behavior is rewarded then the observer may imitate that
behavior. On the other hand, if the model’s behavior is not rewarded one may not imitate that behavior.

The cognitive learning theorists argue that learning cannot be reduced to mere forming of ‘association’ as
contented by Pavlovian and Skinnerian psychologists. They hold that cognitive process like perception, thinking
and memory play key role in learning.

Insight Learning and Sign learning can be seen as instance of cognitive theory in addition to Bandura’s theory.

Wolfgang Kohler observed that animal forms a mental representation of the problem until it hits on a solution, and
then enacts the solution in the real world. The solution will appear sudden because the representation persists over
time. The solution is transferable because the representation is abstract enough to cover more than the original
situation.

Tolman’s Sign Learning is also known as latent learning. It suggests that learning occurs even in the absence of
reinforcement. However, for the behavior to occur overtly reinforcement is requirement.

Nature of learning: Behavioral vs. cognitive

Cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology assumes that humans have the capacity to process and organize information in their mind. It
is concerned less with visible behavior and more with the thought processes behind it. Cognitive psychology tries to
understand concepts such as memory and decision making.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism only concerns itself with the behavior that can be observed. It assumes that we learn by associating
certain events with certain consequences, and will behave in the way with the most desirable consequences.
It also assumes that when events happen together, they become associated and either event will have the same
response. It does not note any difference between animal behavior and human behavior.

       Both branches of psychology attempt to explain human behavior. However, they are both theories have been
replaced by other approaches (such as cognitive behaviorism - which takes the best of both theories - and social
psychology- which looks at how our interactions with others shape our behavior).
Instincts and reflexes are innate behaviors—they occur naturally and do not involve learning. In contrast, learning
is a change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience.

Instinct unlearned knowledge, involving complex patterns of behavior; instincts are thought to be more prevalent in
lower animals than in humans

Complex forms of learning

One involves learning a connection between two stimuli—as when a school child associates the 12 o’clock bell with
lunch.

And another occurs when we associate our actions with rewarding and punishing consequences, such as praise or a
reprimand from the boss or an A or a D from a professor.

Classical condition learning and its Application

Classical conditioning is a type of learning that had a major influence on the school of thought in psychology
known as behaviorism. Discovered by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, classical conditioning is a learning process
that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus.

Behaviorism is based on the assumption that learning occurs through interactions with the environment.

Two other assumptions of this theory are that the environment shapes behavior and that taking internal mental states
such as thoughts, feelings, and emotions into consideration is useless in explaining behavior.

It's important to note that classical conditioning involves placing a neutral signal before a naturally occurring reflex.
In Pavlov's classic experiment with dogs, the neutral signal was the sound of a tone and the naturally occurring
reflex was salivating in response to food. By associating the neutral stimulus with the environmental stimulus (the
presentation of food), the sound of the tone alone could produce the salivation response.

In order to understand how more about how classical conditioning works, it is important to be familiar with the
basic principles of the process.

The Classical Conditioning Process

Classical conditioning basically involves forming an association between two stimuli resulting in a learned
response. There are three basic phases of this process:

 Phase 1: Before Conditioning

 Phase 2: During Conditioning
  Phase 3: After Conditioning

Application of learning

 The beauty of classical conditioning is that it offers a simple explanation for many behaviors, from
cravings to aversions.
 But it offers more than an explanation: It also gives us the tools for eliminating unwanted human behaviors
— although Pavlov never attempted any therapeutic applications.
 It fell to the American behaviorist, John Watson, to first apply classical conditioning techniques to people.
 Stimulus generalization The extension of a learned response to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned
stimulus.
 Stimulus discrimination A change in responses to one stimulus but not to stimuli that are similar.
 Experimental neurosis A pattern of erratic behavior resulting from a demanding discrimination learning
task, typically one that involves aversive stimuli.
 John Watson and Rosalie Rayner conditioned Little Albert to fear furry objects like this Santa Claus mask
(Discovering Psychology, 1990).
 Taste-aversion learning A biological tendency in which an organism learns, after a single experience, to
avoid a food with a certain taste, if eating it is followed by illness.

Compare and contrast classical and operant conditioning. How are they alike? How do they differ?

Operant Conditioning Learning

Skinner believed that we do have such a thing as a mind, but that it is simply more productive to study observable
behavior rather than internal mental events. He believed that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the
causes of an action and its consequences. He called this approach operant conditioning.

Skinner's theory of operant conditioning was based on the work of Thorndike (1905). Edward Thorndike studied
learning in animals using a puzzle box to propose the theory known as the 'Law of Effect'. Skinner is regarded as the
father of Operant Conditioning

Behavior which is reinforced tends to be repeated (i.e. strengthened); behavior which is not reinforced tends to die
out-or be extinguished (i.e. weakened). Skinner (1948) studied operant conditioning by conducting experiments
using animals which he placed in a 'Skinner Box' which was similar to Thorndike’s puzzle box.

B.F. Skinner (1938) coined the term operant conditioning; it means roughly changing of behavior by the use of
reinforcement which is given after the desired response.
Skinner identified three types of responses or operant that can follow behavior.

• Neutral operant: responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior
being repeated.

• Reinforces: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated.
Reinforces can be either positive or negative.

• Punishers: Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.
Punishment weakens behavior.

For example, if when you were younger you tried smoking at school, and the chief consequence was that you got in
with the crowd you always wanted to hang out with, you would have been positively reinforced (i.e. rewarded) and
would be likely to repeat the behavior. If, however, the main consequence was that you were caught, caned,
suspended from school and your parents became involved you would most certainly have been punished, and you
would consequently be much less likely to smoke now.

Behavior Shaping

A further important contribution made by Skinner (1951) is the notion of behaviour shaping through successive
approximation. Skinner argues that the principles of operant conditioning can be used to produce extremely
complex behaviour if rewards and punishments are delivered in such a way as to encourage move an organism
closer and closer to the desired behaviour each time.

In order to do this, the conditions (or contingencies) required to receive the reward should shift each time the
organism moves a step closer to the desired behaviour.

According to Skinner, most animal and human behaviour (including language) can be explained as a product of this
type of successive approximation.

Behavior Modification

Behavior modification is a set of therapies / techniques based on operant conditioning (Skinner, 1938, 1953). The
main principle comprises changing environmental events that are related to a person's behavior. For example, the
reinforcement of desired behaviors and ignoring or punishing undesired ones.

This is not as simple as it sounds — always reinforcing desired behavior, for example, is basically bribery.

There are different types of positive reinforcements. Primary reinforcement is when a reward strengths a behavior
by itself. Secondary reinforcement is when something strengthens a behavior because it leads to a primary
reinforce.

Examples of behavior modification therapy include token economy and behavior shaping
Cognitive learning

Observational learning extends the effective range of both classical and operant conditioning. In contrast to
classical and operant conditioning, in which learning occurs only through direct experience, observational learning
is the process of watching others and then imitating what they do. A lot of learning among humans and other
animals comes from observational learning. To get an idea of the extra effective range that observational learning
brings, consider Ben and his son Julian from the introduction. How might observation help Julian learn to surf, as
opposed to learning by trial and error alone? By watching his father, he can imitate the moves that bring success and
avoid the moves that lead to failure.

KOHLER insight Learning: Wolfgang Kohler Mental processes had to be an essential component of learning,
even though behaviorists disagreed.

Insight Learning: Problem solving occurs by suddenly perceiving familiar objects in new forms or relationships.
Example: chimp stacks crates to reach food .This are a form of cognitive learning.

TOLMAN’S COGNITIVE MAP Edward Tolman Argued that it was a cognitive map that accounted for a rat
quickly selecting an alternative route in a maze when the preferred path was blocked.

Cognitive Map: A mental image that an organism uses to navigate through a familiar environment. Example:
giving directions, walking through your house in the dark

-Challenged the work of Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner --Claimed learning was mental, not behavioral. Instead of
learning a series of left and right turns, he argued that they acquired a more abstract mental representation of the
maze’s spatial layout

-Reinforcement is not needed (as behaviorists believed) in rats solving the maze .Organisms learn the spatial layout
of their environments by exploration, even if they are not reinforced for exploring (Evolutionary perspective:
Animals foraging for food)
Memory:

Memory phenomenon

Memory connotes the capacity of an individual to record, retain and reproduce the same information.

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850 - 1909) Frederic Bartlett (1886-1969) we the first ones to use scientific techniques to
study memory.

The three-stage information processing differentiates three distinct stages of memory namely sensory memory,
short-term memory, and long-term memory. The stimuli that we first receive are momentarily retained in sensory
memory. Images that we see are stored as Iconic memory and the auditory stimuli are stored as Echoic memory.

Information from sensory memory that has been attended to are sent to the STM where it stays for 20 seconds or
less. If no effort is taken to rehearse the information at STM it would fade away. Information from the short-term
memory, when repeatedly rehearsed, reaches the long-term memory (LTM). Procedural memory and Declarative
memory are the two types of memory in the LTM.

Basic processes (encoding, storage and retrieval)

Memory process includes encoding, storage and retrieval.

 Encoding refers to getting information into the brain,

 Storage refers to retaining the information and
  Retrieval refers to getting back the information.

Successful retrieval depends on organization of the information and the context of encoding and retrieval.
Forgetting or retention loss connotes the apparent loss of information already encoded and stored in an individual's
long term memory. Few causes of Forgetting that have been identified are the decay of memory trace, problems
with interfering materials, a break down in retrieval process, emotional and motivational conditions, and organic
factors.

Models of memory

Parallel Distributed Processing Model

The PDP model has 3 basic principles: a.) the representation of information is distributed (not local) b.) memory
and knowledge for specific things are not stored explicitly, but stored in the connections between units. c.) learning
can occur with gradual changes in connection strength by experience.

"These models assume that information processing takes place through interactions of large numbers of simple
processing elements called units, each sending excitatory and inhibitory signals to other units." (McLelland, J.,
Rumelhart, D., & Hinton, G., 1986,p.10)

Rumelhart, Hinton, and McClelland (1986) state that there are 8 major components of the PDP model framework:

 a set of processing units

 a state of activation
 an output function for each unit
 a pattern of connectivity among units
 a propagation rule for propagating patterns of activities through the network of connectivity's
  an activation rule for combining the inputs impinging on a unit with the current state of that unit to
produce a new level of activation for the unit
 a learning rule whereby patterns of connectivity are modified by experience
 an environment within which the system must operate

Information Processing Model

The first stage she went through was attending. In this stage, she was listening and paying close attention to her
grandmother's words that she could do whatever she wanted if she believed in herself. When we attend or focus on
an event or a conversation, we are preparing ourselves to receive it.

The second stage Jessica went through was encoding. This is what happened when she was taking in her
grandmother's words. If she was neither paying attention to them nor placing any importance on them, she would
not have encoded them.

The third stage was storing. In this stage, her grandmother's words were entering her memory bank, ready to be
called upon at some other time.

The final stage was retrieving. This happened when Jessica went through a tough time in college and looked back
on her grandmother's words, bringing them up to her conscious awareness. She retrieved this information in order to
use it.

Retrieval (cues, recall, recognition, reconstruction, and automatic encoding)

In the 1980s, Endel Tulving proposed an alternative to the two-stage theory, which he called the theory of encoding
specificity. This theory states that memory utilizes information both from the specific memory trace as well as from
the environment in which it is retrieved.

Because of its focus on the retrieval environment or state, encoding specificity takes into account context cues, and
it also has some advantages over the two-stage theory as it accounts for the fact that, in practice, recognition is not
actually always superior to recall.

Typically, recall is better when the environments are similar in both the learning (encoding) and recall phases,
suggesting that context cues are important. 

Cues can facilitate recovery of memories that have been "lost." In research, a process called cued recall is used to
study these effects.

Cued recall occurs when a person is given a list to remember and is then given cues during the testing phase to aid
in the retrieval of memories. The stronger the link between the cue and the testing word, the better the participant
will recall the words.

There are three main types of recall:

Free recall is the process in which a person is given a list of items to remember and then is asked to recall them in
any order (hence the name “free”). This type of recall often displays evidence of either the primacy effect (when the
person recalls items presented at the beginning of the list earlier and more often) or the recency effect (when the
person recalls items presented at the end of the list earlier and more often), and also of the contiguity effect (the
marked tendency for items from neighbouring positions in the list to be recalled successively).

Cued recall is the process in which a person is given a list of items to remember and is then tested with the use of
cues or guides. When cues are provided to a person, they tend to remember items on the list that they did not
originally recall without a cue, and which were thought to be lost to memory. This can also take the form
of stimulus-response recall, as when words, pictures and numbers are presented together in a pair, and the resulting
associations between the two items cues the recall of the second item in the pair.

Serial recall refers to our ability to recall items or events in the order in which they occurred, whether
chronological events in our autobiographical memories, or the order of the different parts of a sentence (or
phonemes in a word) in order to make sense of them. 

Because of the way memories are encoded and stored, memory recall is effectively an on-the-fly reconstruction of
elements scattered throughout various areas of our brains. Memories are not stored in our brains like books on
library shelves, or even as a collection of self-contained recordings or pictures or video clips, but may be better
thought of as a kind of collage or a jigsaw puzzle, involving different elements stored in disparate parts of
the brain linked together by associations and neural networks. 

Recognition is the association of an event or physical object with one previously experienced or encountered, and
involves a process of comparison of information with memory, e.g. recognizing a known face, true/false or multiple
choice questions, etc. 

Automatic encoding is a process of memory where information is taken in and encoded without deliberate effort.

This can be seen in how a person can learn and remember how things are arranged in a house, or where to find
particular items in a grocery store.

These are things that don't take any particular study or effort, but are just quickly learned through experience.

Forgetting:

Memory researchers certainly haven’t forgotten Hermann Ebbinghaus, the first person to do scientific studies of
forgetting, using himself as a subject. He spent a lot of time memorizing endless lists of nonsense syllables and then
testing himself to see whether he remembered them. He found that he forgot most of what he learned during the
first few hours after learning it.

Forgetting refers to apparent loss or modification of information already encoded and stored in an individual's long
term memory. It is a spontaneous or gradual process in which old memories are unable to be recalled from memory
storage.

Recall is remembering without any external cues. For example, essay questions test recall of knowledge because
nothing on a blank sheet of paper will jog the memory.

Recognition is identifying learned information using external cues. For example, true or false questions and
multiple-choice questions test recognition because the previously learned information is there on the page, along
with other options. In general, recognition is easier than recall.

Causes of Forgetting

Everyone forgets things. There are six main reasons for forgetting: ineffective encoding, decay, interference,
retrieval failure, motivated forgetting, and physical injury or trauma.

Ineffective Encoding

The way information is encoded affects the ability to remember it. Processing information at a deeper level makes
it harder to forget. If a student thinks about the meaning of the concepts in her textbook rather than just reading
them, she’ll remember them better when the final exam comes around. If the information is not encoded properly—
such as if the student simply skims over the textbook while paying more attention to the TV—it is more likely to be
forgotten.

Decay

According to decay theory, memory fades with time. Decay explains the loss of memories from sensory and short-
term memory. However, loss of long-term memories does not seem to depend on how much time has gone by since
the information was learned. People might easily remember their first day in junior high school but completely
forget what they learned in class last Tuesday.

Interference

Interference theory has a better account of why people lose long-term memories. According to this theory, people
forget information because of interference from other learned information. There are two types of interference:
retroactive and proactive.

 Retroactive interference happens when newly learned information makes people forget old information.

 Proactive interference happens when old information makes people forget newly learned information.

Retrieval Failure

Forgetting may also result from failure to retrieve information in memory, such as if the wrong sort of retrieval
cue is used. For example, xara may not be able to remember the name of her fifth-grade teacher. However, the
teacher’s name might suddenly pop into xara’s head if she visits her old grade school and sees her fifth-grade
classroom. The classroom would then be acting as a context cue for retrieving the memory of his teacher’s name.

Physical Injury or Trauma

Anterograde amnesia is the inability to remember events that occur after an injury or traumatic event. Retrograde
amnesia is the inability to remember events that occurred before an injury or traumatic event.

Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve

In order to test for new information, Ebbinghaus tested his memory for periods of time ranging from 20 minutes to
31 days

His results, plotted in what is known as the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, revealed a relationship between forgetting
and time.

Initially, information is often lost very quickly after it is learned. Factors such as how the information was learned
and how frequently it was rehearsed play a role in how quickly these memories are lost.

The forgetting curve also showed that forgetting does not continue to decline until all of the information is lost. At a
certain point, the amount of forgetting levels off. What exactly does this mean? It indicates that information stored
in long-term memory is surprisingly stable.

Memory and the brain

An early influential idea regarding localized representations of memory in the brain suggested physical changes
occur when we learn something new. One popular idea was that connections grow between areas of the brain.

Three Stages of Memory

Three stages of memory are: Sensory, short-term, and long-term memory

• Sensory memory

 visual, auditory, and olfactory information

 transfers to short-term memory

• Short-term memory

 stores seven single or chunked items for 30 seconds without repetition

 solves problems through reasoning process (example: organizing facts into a coherent essay)

 Long-term Memory
 The ability to transfer information from short- to long-term memory is relevant to the learning process.
 People use attention, repetition, and association with past learning to encode information.
 Neurologically, encoding happens when information is repeatedly processed in the hippocampus.

What part of the brain is responsible for memory?

Different areas and systems of the brain are responsible for different kinds of memory. The hippocampus,

parahippocampal region, and areas of the cerebral cortex (including the prefrontal cortex) work together to support
declarative, or cognitive, memory.

Where is the memory located in the brain?

The reason is that long-term memory is not located in just one specific area of the brain. The hippocampus is the
catalyst for long-termmemory, but the actual memory traces are encoded at various places in the cortex.

Amnesia and false memories

Amnesia is the loss of memory. Studies on amnesia help to clarify the distinctions between and among different
kinds of memories and their mechanisms. Different areas of the hippocampus are active during memory formation
and retrieval.

 Damage results in amnesia.

 Patient HM is a famous case study in psychology who had his hippocampus removed to prevent epileptic
seizures.
 Afterwards Patient HM had great difficulty forming new long-term memories.
 STM or working memory remained intact.
 Suggested that the hippocampus is vital for the formation of new long-term memories.

The main factors involved may be brain damage affecting frontal control and executive systems (spontaneous
confabulation), a weak memory trace (momentary confabulation), anomalous processing of input modulated by
personal self-beliefs (delusional memories), social coercion and source memory errors, usually in the context of low
self-esteem (false confession), and anomalous, biased, or selective retrieval from autobiographical memory (pseudo
logia fantastica, fugue, multiple personality).

Some of these phenomena may result characteristically from a combination of factors (e.g. the absence of rehearsal
and a particular social context in cases of apparently false or distorted memories for child sexual abuse).

In others, an interaction between social and biological factors may occasionally be important (the confabulations
produced by brain damaged patients in very stressful or extreme situations).

Although all these phenomena can be described and characterized within a general model of memory and executive
function, provided that social factors and some notion of “self ” (called here a “personal semantic belief system”)
are introduced, different components of the model have been highlighted in the generation of particular instances of
false memory.

It follows that these phenomena are probably best viewed as different types of false memory, with varying
underlying mechanisms, and that the term “confabulation” is perhaps most useful if confined to its current
conventions (brain disease and instances of “momentary” confabulation):

In particular, confabulations and delusions need to be kept conceptually distinct. However, the relative dearth of
neuropsychological studies comparing false memory phenomena means that the specific processes involved require
further investigation.

False memory is the psychological phenomenon in which a person recalls a memory that did not actually occur.
False memory is often considered in legal cases regarding childhood sexual abuse.

This phenomenon was initially investigated by psychological pioneers Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud. Freud
wrote The Aetiology of Hysteria, where he discussed repressed memories of childhood sexual trauma in their
relation to hysteria.

 Elizabeth Loftus has, since her debuting research project in 1974, been a lead researcher in memory recovery and
false memories. False memory syndrome recognizes false memory as a prevalent part of one’s life in which it
affects the person’s mentality and day-to-day life.

False memory syndrome differs from false memory in that the syndrome is heavily influential in the orientation of a
person's life, while false memory can occur without this significant effect. The syndrome takes effect because the
person believes the influential memory to be true. However, its research is controversial and the syndrome is
excluded from identification as a mental disorder and, therefore, is also excluded from the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders. False memory is an important part of psychological research because of the ties it has
to a large number of mental disorders, such as PTSD.[8]
Review Questions

1. What is retroactive interference?

2. How is memory related to brain?
3. Define learning and critically examine the conditioning learning theory of Ivan Pavlov.(10)
4. What do you understand by memory? Explain memorizing process and the causes of forgetting. (10)
5. What is operant conditioning learning? How can it be used in strengthening and disadvantages? Explain.
(10)
6. Define attitude. Explain how attitude are formed along its types.(10)
7. What is insight learning? Explain the role of reinforcement to promote business activities. (10)
8. Differentiate behavioral Vs Cognitive learning. (10)
9. Define and explain observation learning. (10)
10. What is classical conditioning? Explain with the experiment of Pavlov. (10)
11. What is reinforcement? What are the implications of schedule of reinforcement in business management?
Illustrate. (10)