SENSATION AND PERCEPTION

SENSATION
Is the physiological arousal of the sense organs (ex. seeing, smelling, etc) Sensation refers to the process of sensing our environment through touch, taste, sight, sound, and smell.

THE SENSES
EYES NOSE SKIN EARS TONGUE VESTIBULAR KINESTHESIA

POP QUESTIONS!!!
1. Why is it that when it is dark, we can only see BLACK and WHITE? 2. What structure allows us to recognize COLOR during the day? 3. What can a CLOR BLIND person not see?

ANSWERS: 1. RODS ---cannot distinguish colours, but are responsible for low-light , black & white vision, and work well in dim light 2. CONES ---are responsible for color vision, and works best in daytime where light is most abundant. 3. In humans, there are three types of cones, sensitive to red, green, and blue, thus anyone who is color blind, is NOT able to see only these colors.

POP QUESTIONS!!! 1.Aside from hearing, what else can our ears function for?

ANSWER: Our ears can also help us identify DIRECTION and DISTANCE

POP QUESTION!!! 1. TRUE OR FALSE We have more taste buds when we were younger compared to this time around. ANSWER: You were born with about 10,000 taste buds, but they begin to die as you get older. Thus, the older we get the lesser taste buds we possess...

TRIVIA QUESTION: 1. HOW MANY SMELL SENSATIONS CAN WE EXPERIENCE? 2. TRUE OR FALSE: OUR SENSE OF SMELL DECREASES WHEN WE GET A COLD OR A FLUE. ANSWER: The smell receptors are sensitive to seven types of sensations that can be characterized as CAMPHOR, MUSK, FLOWER, MINT, ETHER, ACRID, & PUTRID. The sense of smell is sometimes temporarily lost when a person has a cold.

TRIVIA QUESTION: 1. WHICH TWO PARTS OF OUR SKIN ARE MOST SENSITIVE TO TOUCH? ANSWER: The FINGERTIPS and the SEXUAL ORGANS have the greatest concentration of nerve endings, thus the most sensitive of all!!!

VESTIBULAR SYSTEM,
Found in the inner ear responsible for the sense of balance and spatial orientation The inner ear has chambers filled with a viscous fluid and small particles .The movement of these particles over small hair cells in the inner ear sends signals to the brain that are interpreted as motion and acceleration. Disturbances cause the feeling of dizziness or unsteadiness.

Other senses Kinesthesia is the precise awareness of muscle and joint movement that allows us to coordinate our muscles when we walk, talk, and use our hands. It is in this sense that enables us to touch the tip of our nose with our eyes closed or to know which part of the body we should scratch when we itch.

For next meeting!!!

UNDERSTANDING SENSATION
Identifying basic characteristics Explaining each characteristic Describing the basic sensation principles

Characteristics of Sensation: SPECIFICITY TRANSDUCTION THRESHOLD

SPECIFICITY it refers to the characteristic of sense organs to be specific with their stimulus (example is that eyes are specific to light as ears are specific to sounds, etc.)

TRANSDUCTION it refers to the process of changing raw stimulus into an electrochemical energy/impulse which the nervous system can acknowledge

THRESHOLDS ---refers to the amount of energy needed to carry out a response there are two kinds of thresholds: 1. ABSOLUTE 2. JND

ABSOLUTE THRESHOLD

The minimum amount of energy required to carry out a response from the sense organ. The absolute threshold is the point where something becomes noticeable to our senses.

EXAMPLES:
Light ---- a candle seen at 30 miles away on a dark clear night Sound --- tick of a clock under quiet conditions Taste --- one teaspoon of sugar in 2 gallons of water Smell --- a drop of perfume

JND (Just Noticeable Difference)

refers to the noticeable changes in the amount of energy of the stimulus (ex: notes from a piano being played, voices of different tones) The difference threshold is the amount of change needed for us to recognize that a change has occurred.

SENSATION PRINCIPLES
A. WEBERS LAW B. SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY C. SENSORY ADAPTATION

A. Webers Law
Refers to the difficulty to determine the change in the threshold that is experienced The reason many of us would not is because the change required to detect a difference has to represent a significant percentage.

EXAMPLE:
Imagine holding a five pound weight and one pound was added. Most of us would notice this difference. But what if we were holding a fifty pound weight? Would we notice if another pound were added? ANSWER: We will have difficulty in determining the change. The reason many of us would not is because the change required to detect a difference has to represent a percentage. In the first scenario, one pound would increase the weight by 20%, in the second, that same weight would add only an additional 2%.

B. Sensory Adaptation
diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation Example: When we use the same cologne everyday, we tend to use more and more each day because we seem to sense that the smell is not as fragrant as it was before when we first started using it.

C. Selective Attention
---focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus
Example:
In a party, different sounds and or stimuli could affect our attention, when we want to focus and perceive on things we find important, we consciously become aware of that desired stimulus. For example we exert effort to listen to our friends conversation than the music or conversation of others.

What have we learned so far?

1. Identify the various sense organs, basic parts and how they function 2. Understanding sensation through its
Characteristics (specificity, transduction, threshold) Sensation principles explained

For next meeting

Perception
is the process involving organization, interpretation of stimuli into meaningful information Perception refers to interpretation of what we take in through our senses. Our perception varies from each other, we have different contexts & experiences for which to base it on.

Determiners of ATTENTION
Nature (example: pictures catch more attention compared to words) Novelty/newness Intensity of stimuli (neon colors catch more attention than pastels, loud than silent, etc.) Location Size, etc *** INTEREST ***MOTIVATION

INTEREST and MOTIVATION are far more or better determiners of attention in terms of strength. Even if size matters but if the person is not interested with the size then it would not really matter at all.

ILLUSSION and ESP

Illusion refers to a state whereby there is an error in perception ESP (extra sensory perception) An experience of sensation & perception which cannot be processed with the 5 senses

ESP an experience that cannot be processed through the 5 sense modalities: Clairvoyance (seeing without sense of sight) Telepathy (thought transference between minds) Telekinesis (move objects w/out physical interaction) Precognition (predicting future events)