SENSATION AND PERCEPTION:

-Sensation and perception are two distinct but closely connected processes. Perception is the
process through which the brain selects, organizes, and interprets the information received
by our sensory receptors about the physical world. In other words, the physiological basis of
perception is the senses. Because each person's brain interprets stimuli differently based on
their learning, memory, emotions, and expectations, perception of the same senses might
change from person to person.

SENSATION

-Sensation is the process by which our brains receive information through our five senses, which
the brain then experiences and interprets. Our five sensory systems are responsible for
sensation: vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

-We can also receive signals that are conveyed below the level of our awareness, which are
referred to as subliminal messages. When a stimulus achieves a certain level of intensity, it is
said to have reached When it reaches a physiological threshold, it is strong enough to excite
nerve impulses to the brain via sensory receptors: This is a non-negotiable criterion. Below is a
message. The concept of a threshold is said to be subliminal: we receive it, but we are not aware
of it. It's something I'm not consciously aware of. As a result, the message It has been detected,
but for whatever reason, it has not been chosen. for short-term or working memory processing

BASIC SENSORY PROCESS

VISION- THE VISUAL SYSTEM

- Our bodies can view our physical environment owing to the human visual system.
To interpret external stimuli (light waves) as images, the system requires
communication between its principal sensory organ (the eye) and the core of the
central nervous system (the brain). Humans are extremely visual beings, as opposed
to many other species who rely on smell or hearing, and we have evolved an
incredibly complex sight system over time.

- In vision, the eye is the most essential sense organ. The pupil is responsible for
allowing light waves to pass through the cornea and into the eye. The cornea is the
transparent layer that protects the eye. It serves as a barrier between the inner eye
and the outside world, as well as aiding in the focusing of light waves that enter the
eye. The pupil is a small opening in the eye that allows light to pass through. Its size
varies based on the amount of light and the emotional state of the person. The pupil
dilates (or expands) to enable more light to enter the eye when the light intensity in
the room is low. The pupil constricts, or shrinks, when the light level is high..

- In vision, the eye is the most essential sense organ. The pupil is responsible for allowing
light waves to pass through the cornea and into the eye. The cornea is the transparent
layer that protects the eye. It serves as a barrier between the inner eye and the outside
world, as well as aiding in the focusing of light waves that enter the eye. The pupil is a
small opening in the eye that allows light to pass through. Its size varies based on the
 amount of light and the emotional state of the person. The pupil dilates (or expands) to
enable more light to enter the eye when the light intensity in the room is low. The pupil
constricts, or shrinks, when the light level is high..

- The left hemisphere of the brain controls the motor functions of the right half of the body, and
vice versa; the same is true of vision. The left hemisphere of the brain processes visual images
from the right-hand side of space, or the right visual field, and the right hemisphere processes
visual images from the left-hand side of space, or the left visual field. The optic chiasm is a
complicated crossover of optic nerve fibers behind the eyes at the bottom of the brain, allowing
the right eye to “wire” to the left neural hemisphere and the left eye to “wire” to the right
hemisphere. This allows the visual cortex to receive the same visual field from both eyes.

ANATOMY OF THE AUDITORY SYSTEM

- The human auditory system enables the body to receive and interpret sound waves into useful
information. The ear, which is divided into the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear, is the
principal sensory organ responsible for hearing. The inner ear houses the receptor cells required
for hearing and maintaining balance. Humans also have the unique capacity to guess where
sounds originate, which is referred to as sound localization.

- The ear is the main sensory organ of the auditory system. It performs the first processing
of sound and houses all of the sensory receptors required for hearing. The ear’s three
divisions (outer, middle, and inner) have specialized functions that combine to allow us
to hear.

OUTER EAR

- The outer ear is the region of the ear that can be seen from the outside of a person's
head. The pinna, the ear canal, and the tympanic membrane, the most superficial layer
of the ear drum, are all included. The primary function of the outer ear is to collect
sound energy and amplify sound pressure. The pinna, a fold of cartilage that surrounds
the ear canal, reflects and attenuates sound waves, allowing the brain to determine
where the sound is coming from. The sound waves enter the ear canal, where they are
amplified and directed to the ear drum. Sound reaches the middle ear after the wave
has vibrated the tympanic membrane.

MIDDLE EAR

- The middle ear is a tympanic (drum-like) chamber filled with air that transports acoustic
energy from the ear canal to the inner ear's cochlea. The malleus, incus, and stapes are
three bones in the middle ear that help to do this. The malleus (Latin for "hammer") is
attached to the ear drum's movable part. It detects and transmits sound waves to the
incus. Between the malleus and the stapes lies the incus (Latin for "anvil"). The stapes
(Latin for "stirrup") is responsible for transferring vibrations from the incus to the oval
window, which is connected to the inner ear. The middle ear works as a gatekeeper to
the inner ear, protecting it from damage caused by loud sounds, thanks to these stages.
 - INNER EAR

The inner ear, unlike the middle ear, is filled with fluid. When the stapes footplate
presses against the oval window in the inner ear, the fluid within the cochlea moves.
The cochlea's job is to convert mechanical sound waves into electrical or neurological
signals that the brain can understand. The tympanic canal, vestibular canal, and
middle canal are three fluid-filled regions within the cochlea. The hair cells of the
organ of Corti, a ribbon of sensory cells that runs down the cochlea, are stimulated by
fluid movement within these canals. Using cilia, a particular sort of mechanosensor,
these hair cells convert fluid waves into electrical impulses.

GUSTATION AND TASTE BUD AND TASTE:

The gustatory system is responsible for the human sense of taste, which allows us to
detect diverse flavors in foods and beverages. Gustation is classified as chemoreception,
along with olfaction (the sense of smell), because it works by reacting with molecular
chemical components in a particular substance. Taste buds are specialized cells in the
gustatory system that are positioned on the tongue and sense tastants (taste
molecules). The information from the taste buds is sent to the brain, where a chemical is
processed as a specific taste. Bitter, salty, sweet, sour, and umami are the five major
tastes (savory).

OLFACTION:

By breathing and detecting odorants in the environment, the olfactory system provides
people with their sense of smell. Because it uses chemoreceptors to interpret
information about substances, olfaction is physiologically related to gustation, the sense
of taste. Complex flavor perception necessitates simultaneous recognition of taste and
smell sensations, a process known as chemoreceptive sensory interaction. If the
olfactory system is damaged, foods will taste different. Olfaction, on the other hand,
differs from gustation in that it captures scents via the sensory organs of the nose and
nasal cavity.

SOMATOSENSATION:

The somatic or somatosensory system refers to the human sensation of touch. The skin is
the largest and most complicated organ in the somatosensory system, and touch is the first
sensation developed by the body. Skin permits the body to function successfully in the physical
world by collecting external stimuli and processing them into meaningful information for the
neurological system. There are three types of touch receptors in the skin: mechanoreception
(pressure), thermoreception (heat), and nociception (pain) (sense of pain). Proprioceptor cells in
muscles and joints also help with the somatosensory system, however they are sometimes
divided into another sensory category termed proprioceptors.
 SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY

 For example in our emails, gmail will decide whether those message should be put in a spam
email or not.

There are 4 possible outcomes

1. A good message gets masrked as a good message
2. A good message gets marked as a "spam" message
3. A "spam" ,message gets marked as a good message
4. A "spam" message gets marked as a "spam message"
From that there are 4 possible outcomes
Hit- a correct identification of something that you should say yes
Miss- you miss something that you should have said yes
Correct refection- properly said no to something that you should say no
False alarm- you said no to something that you should said yes.

PERCEPTION

Perception refers to the set of processes we use to make sense of all the stimuli you
encounter every second, from the glow of the computer screen in front of you to the
smell of the room to the itch on your ankle. Our perceptions are based on how we
interpret all these different sensations, which are sensory impressions we get from the
stimuli in the world around us. Perception enables us to navigate the world and to make
decisions about everything, from which T-shirt to wear or how fast to run away from a
bear.

Close your eyes. What do you remember about the room you are in? The color of the
walls, the angle of the shadows? Whether or not we know it, we selectively attend to
different things in our environment. Our brains simply don’t have the capacity to attend
to every single detail in the world around us. Optical illusions highlight this tendency.
Have you ever looked at an optical illusion and seen one thing, while a friend sees
something completely different? Our brains engage in a three-step process when
presented with stimuli: selection, organization, and interpretation.

For example, think of Rubin’s Vase, a well-known optical illusion depicted below. First
we select the item to attend to and block out most of everything else. It’s our brain’s way
of focusing on the task at hand to give it our attention. In this case, we have chosen to
attend to the image. Then, we organize the elements in our brain. Some individuals
organize the dark parts of the image as the foreground and the light parts as the
background, while others have the opposite interpretation.
One way to think of this concept is that sensation is a physical process, whereas perception is
psychological. For
example, upon walking into a kitchen and smelling the scent of baking cinnamon rolls, the sensation is
the scent
receptors detecting the odor of cinnamon, but the perception may be “Mmm, this smells like the bread
Grandma
used to bake when the family gathered for holidays.”
When given a context, your perception is driven by your cognitive expectations. Now you are processing
the shape in a top-down fashion. One way to think of this concept is that sensation is a physical process,
whereas perception is psychological. For example, upon walking into a kitchen and smelling the scent of
baking cinnamon rolls, the sensation is the scent receptors detecting the odor of cinnamon, but the
perception may be “Mmm, this smells like the bread Grandma used to bake when the family gathered
for holidays.”

PERCEPTION 2.02

Motivation can also affect perception. Have you ever been expecting a really
important phone call and, while taking a shower, you think you hear the phone
ringing, only to discover that it is not? If so, then you have experienced how
motivation to detect a meaningful stimulus can shift our ability to discriminate
between a true sensory stimulus and background noise. The ability to identify a
stimulus when it is embedded in a distracting background is called signal
detection theory. This might also explain why a mother is awakened by a quiet
murmur from her baby but not by other sounds that occur while she is asleep.
Signal detection theory has practical applications, such as increasing air traffic
controller accuracy. Controllers need to be able to detect planes among many
signals (blips) that appear on the radar screen and follow those planes as they
move through the sky. In fact, the original work of the researcher who developed
signal detection theory was focused on improving the sensitivity of air traffic
controllers to plane blips (Swets, 1964).

- Beliefs, attitudes, prejudices, expectations, and life experiences can all influence our
perceptions. Individuals who are deprived of binocular vision at important phases of
development have difficulty sensing depth, as you will discover later in this chapter
(Fawcett, Wang, & Birch, 2005). People's shared experiences within a specific cultural
environment can have a significant impact on perception.