SENSATION AND

PERCEPTION
 SENSATION
• Sensory organs are biological
transducers (convert one kind of
energy into another)
• Remember, the brain/nervous system
runs on electric energy
• Thus, sensation is converting energy
from the environment so the nervous
system can ”understand” the input
(sensory impressions)
• Eyes = light, ears = mechanical, nose +
tongue = chemical
 SENSATION - MEASURING
• Psychophysics: the study of how the mind
interprets the physical properties of stimuli
• Energy above a certain minimum intensity is
necessary for a sensory impression to arise
• Absolute threshold: minimum amount of
physical energy that can be detected 50% of
the time
• This would vary between people (and
species!)
• Example: TV hums, owls at night
• Difference threshold: minimum difference in
physical energy between two stimuli that can
be detected 50% of the time
• Sometimes called “just noticeable
difference”
• Example: extra grains of sugar in coffee
 SENSATION - SELECTION
• Sensory transduction involves “selection”. Humans
have ways to reduce sensory overload.
1. Lack of specific transducers to avoid
transduction of all energy
encountered(Example: we cannot sense
bioelectric fields of other creatures….sharks
can, though). (Caputi et al, 2013).
2. Restricted range of transducers (Example:
our eyes can only transduce a fraction of
electromagnetic energies). (Fain, 2003).
3. Sensory adaption (Example: “nose blind”,
pressure adaption, etc)
4. Feature detection (Example: the visual
system has a set of feature detectors attuned
to specific stimuli such as lines, shapes,
edges, spots, colors, and other patterns (Hubel
& Wiesel, 2005; Blakemore & Cooper, 1970).
SENSATION - SELECTION
THE SENSES
 VISION
• We see light based on hue, saturation, brightness
• Pupil: Black opening inside iris that allows light to enter eye

• Sclera: White portion of eye, helps protect and muscles are

attached

• Iris: Colored structure on surface

• Ciliary muscle: Changes shape of lens

• Cornea: curved, transparent, protective layer through which

light enters the eye

• Lens: Clear structure behind pupil that bends light towards retina

• Retina: Surface at the back of the eye on which the lens focuses
light rays

• Optic nerve: Conveys visual information away from retina to the

brain

• *Fovea: Tiny spot in center of retina (has cones) where visual

acuity is greatest
 VISION
Cones (in fovea): color vision (iodopsin)

Rods: (outside fovea): greyscale, dim light,

peripheral vision (especially motion)

*Dark adaption: increased light sensitivity of the

eye under low-light conditions (rhodopsin)

*Insensitive to red light. This is why submarines,

airplane cockpits, and fighter pilot rooms are
illuminated with red light (no need to adjust from a
light to dark place – rods aren’t stimulated by red
light).
 VISION – PATH OF LIGHT
• Light -> Cornea (bends light to
help focus) -> pupil (iris
controls how much light the
pupil has coming in) -> lens
(works with cornea to focus on
retina).
• Once light hits retina ->
photoreceptors (rods and
cones) use action potentials to
convert light to electrical
energy -> through optic nerve
in the brain.
• At this point, the light has been
bent twice— as it moved from
the cornea through the lens,
and then from the lens to the
retina. This “double bending”
has actually flipped the image
upside down.
 VISION – BLIND SPOT
• Your retina has a “hole” in it!

• This is because there are no

photoreceptor cells where the
optic nerve exits the eye
(optic disc)
 VISION - THEORIES
Trichromatic theory of color vision: cones
are red, green, and blue (this explains vision at
the receptor level – detection of wavelengths)
Example: we don’t see “yellowish
blue”
Opponent-process theory of color: (this
explains the neural level – opposing color cells
are excited and inhibited by certain
wavelengths) (Goldstein & Brockmole, 2017).
Example: red+green, yellow+blue,
black+white combinations “oppose” each
other and one becomes desensitized. This
explains afterimages.

*Color blindness is either lacking cones or they

do not function (most common is red/green).
 VISION
• Issues with vision
• Hyperopia:
farsightedness (eyeball
too short)
• Myopia: nearsightedness
(eyeball too long)
• Astigmatism: misshapen
cornea or lens
• Presbyopia:
farsightedness caused by
aging (lens hardens over
time)
 HEARING

• Amplitude: loudness
• Pitch: frequency of
sound wave (tone of
sound)
 HEARING
• Sound enters outer ear (pinna)
-> ear drum -> ossicles (the
stapes vibrates against oval
window on cochlea) -> make
pressure waves with fluid in
cochlea, which makes more
vibrations
• Organ of Corti floor (basilar
membrane) have tiny hair cells
(stereocilia) that create action
potentials to transform
mechanical energy to electric
energy to brain
• Hearing loss
HEARING
• Conductive hearing loss:
poor transfer of sounds from
eardrum to inner ear (ossicles
may be damaged from injury).
Hearing aids can help.
• Sensorineural hearing loss:
damage to the inner ear hair
cells or auditory nerve hearing
aids will not help. Cochlear
implants can help (stimulate
auditory nerve directly)
• Noise-induced hearing
loss: subtype of
sensorineural hearing loss
from exposing hair cells to
excessively loud sounds
 HEARING - THEORIES
• How do we determine pitch?
• Frequency theory of hearing: as pitch rises,
nerve impulses of a corresponding frequency are
sent to the auditory nerve
• 1,200-hertz tone produces 1,200 nerve impulses
• This would only explain how we hear to ~4,000-
hertz, but not higher than that

• Place theory of hearing: higher and lower

pitches (tones) excite certain places in the
cochlea.
• Higher tones near base/oval window
• Lower towards outer tip of cochlea
 SMELL
• Transduction process
• Air enters the nose ->
nerve fibers in the lining
of nasal passages have
receptor proteins ->
have sensitivity to
chemical molecules in
the air -> fibers create
action potentials to
olfactory sections of the
brain.
 SMELL
• Lock-and-key theory of olfaction:
theory we may perceive odors based on
the odor molecule “matching” with a
receptor in the nose
• Estimated we carry about 1,000
types of smell receptors, although
~400 are probably exposed
• Molecules may produce odors like
floral, musk, ether (cleaning
chemicals), camphoric (mothballs),
etc and these molecules have a
specific shape to fit into a receptor,
Combinations would occur.
 SMELL

• Anosmia: partial or
complete loss of
smell. May be from
infections, allergies,
repeated exposure to
chemicals, and head
injuries.
 TASTE
• Transduction process: food is chewed->
saliva dissolves food to chemical molecules
-> taste-receptor cells on taste buds
activate when food is chewed -> action
potentials sent to brain

• Theory: Similar to smell (molecules of taste

– sweet, bitter, sour, salty, umami) and
receptors “match” with molecules on
tongue,
• Texture, temperature, pain, and smell
also contribute to taste
 TOUCH

• Process of transduction: skin

receptors process light touch, pain,
pressure, cold, and warmth
• The number of skin receptors
varies and sensitivity generally
matches the number of receptors
in a given area (lips, tongue, and
genitals would have a higher
density of receptors)

• Anaphia: inability to feel touch

 TOUCH
• Pain
• Large nerve fibers deliver sharp, bright,
and fast messages to warn (usually
quickly disappear)
• Small nerve fibers deliver slower,
aching, widespread pain (chronic pain
example)

• Gate control theory: the theory that

a neural gate in the spinal cord
“regulates” what pain is “more
important”. This may be why
acupuncture works.
 KINESTHETIC AND VESTIBULAR
SYSTEMS
• Kinesthesia
(proprioception) is your
awareness of your body’s
position and movements
relative to space
• Kinesthetic transducers
are located in muscles
and joints
 KINESTHETIC AND VESTIBULAR
SYSTEMS
• The vestibular system assists with
your sense of balance and coordination
of movement.
• It is in the inner ear
• Fluid-filled sacs (otoliths) are
sensitive to movement,
acceleration, and gravity
• Semicircular canals have fluid that
bend a “flap” called crista and
helps with balance
*Multimodal integration can cause
sensory mismatch (motion sickness)
PAYING ATTENTION?
 ATTENTION
4 factors influence attention

• Intensity (brighter, louder, etc)

• Contrast (ChAnGE fROm UsuaL)

• Personal Importance

• Goals
 ATTENTION

• Inattentional blindness: failure

to notice a stimulus because
attention is focused elsewhere
 ATTENTION
• Change blindness: failure
to notice that the
background is changing
because attention is
focused elsewhere.
• Important research
emerging for distracted
driving and eyewitness
testimonies
• Mind-wandering: what
you might be doing now
(attention withdrawn from
the physical environment to
focus on internal events).
PERCEPTION
 PERCEPTION
• Perception: selection,
organization, and
interpretation of sensory
input

• Perceptual constructions:
your mental model of
external events
 PERCEPTION
• Illusion: a misleading or
misconstructed perception

• Hallucination: perception with no

basis in reality

*Mirage is an optical illusion that occurs

naturally
 PERCEPTION
• Synesthesia: perceptual phenomenon
when one sensory system creates
perceptual experiences in another sensory
system (Craver-Lemley & Reeves, 2013;
Marks, 2014; Dixon, Smilek, & Merikle,
2004; Russell, Stevenson, & Rich, 2015).
• Suggested to be both genetic and
epigenetic (Baron-Cohen et al, 1996; Bosley
& Eagleman, 2015). Also noted to occur
under epilepsy, stroke, tumors, sensory
deprivation, meditation, and psychedelic
use.
• Examples: hearing colors
• Examples of individuals: Eddie van Halen,
Vincent van Gogh, Marilyn Monroe, Stevie
Wonder
 PERCEPTION
• Bottom-up processing: organized perceptions by beginning with low-level features
• Examples: constructing a house (need raw materials to gradually build the house),
putting a puzzle together (assemble small pieces until a recognizable pattern
emerges)(Goldstein & Brockmole, 2017).

• Top-down processing: perception guided by prior knowledge or expectations

• Examples: perceiving faces, looking at blueprints of the house (“whole picture”)
• Figure-ground organization: organizing a perception so that a part of a stimulus
appears to stand out as an object (figure) against a less prominent background
(ground)
 PERCEPTION
• Gestalt psychologists proposed that the simplest organization involves grouping
some sensations into objects or figures that stand out against a plainer
background

• Suggested to be inborn because it is the first perceptual ability to appear after

cataract patients regain sight
Figure-ground processing
Top-down can be applied for
ambiguous stimuli (patterns
allowing for more than one
interpretation)

The Necker cube is famous

for this and shows
perception is an active
process
• Sometimes, stimulus provides us with
conflicting information and prevents us from
constructing a stable perception
 PERCEPTION
• If bottom-up and top-down processes
worked the same way for everyone,
would we all share the same
perceptual experiences?
• Not always
• Example: two people can hear
something but perceive it differently
• Similarities and differences in our
perceptions often stem from both our
sensory organs (and their
transduction ability) and our past
experiences
 SIMILARITIES
• Transduction process: functioning sensory organs
produce information the same way across all humans

• Perceptual Constancies: “rules of thumb” that the

brain develops based on interpretation of the world
• Shape constancy: the principle that the
perceived shape of an object is unaffected by
changes in its retinal image
• Size constancy: the principle that the perceived
size of an object remains constant, despite
changes in its retinal image
• Brightness constancy: the principle that the
apparent (or relative) brightness of objects
remains the same so long as they are illuminated
by the same amount of light
PERCEPTION
Size constancy: the
principle that the
perceived size of
an object remains
constant, despite
changes in its
retinal image
Brightness constancy: the principle that the apparent (or relative) brightness of
objects remains the same so long as they are illuminated by the same amount of
light
Brightness constancy: the principle that the apparent (or relative) brightness of
objects remains the same so long as they are illuminated by the same amount of
light
 DIFFERENCES
• Transduction process: the process is the same, but
factors such as age-related decline, trauma, color
blindness, etc.
• Example: Laurel vs Yanny audio (Pressnitzer et al,
2018). Yanny is higher frequency, Laurel is lower
frequency

• Experiences
• Example: #thedress Ambiguous lighting causes
perceptual differences to assume light is either
more yellow or more blue
• Another study in the Journal of Vision, by Pascal
Wallisch (2017), found that people who were early
risers were more likely to think the dress was lit
by natural light, perceiving it as white and gold,
and that "night owls" saw the dress as blue and
black
 PERCEPTION

Müller-Lyer illusion – which is longer?

• Evidence suggests that being exposed to a lifetime of edges,
PERCEPTION
corners, and linear buildings affects our perception, especially
with the Muller-Lyre Illusion (Deregowski, 2013; Gregory, 2000;
Heinrich, 2008).

• If two objects make images of the same size, the more distant
object must be larger (if the V-tipped line looks farther away
from you than the arrowhead-tipped line you must compensate
by seeing the V0tipped line as longer) according to Richard
Gregory (2000).

• Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan (2010)

• Illusion does not work on: San Bushman (Kalahari Desert,

Africa)
 PERCEPTION
• Visual cues
• Depth perception:
ability to see 3D space
and judge distances
accurately
• Depth cues (binocular
and monocular)
• Infants have depth
perception:
 PERCEPTION
• Binocular depth cues – imports information about distance and 3D
space that requires 2 eyes
• Retinal disparity – each eye sees a slightly different image
because they are about 2.5in apart. Your brain puts the two images
it receives together into a single 3D image.

• Convergence – when looking at a close-up object, your eyes angle

inwards towards each other. The extra effort used by the muscles
on the outside of each eye gives a clue to the brain about how far
away the object is (greater tension as object gets closer)
Retinal disparity:
each eye works
together to focus on
a single object. It is
Binocular visual cue
and allows us to
perceive depth and
distance
Convergence: the
eyes angle inwards
to assist with focus.

Greater tension in
the muscles would
occur as an object
gets closer
 PERCEPTION

• Monocular depth cues: perceptual

features that impart information about

distance and 3D space that require just

one eye

• Uses accommodation (bending

lens to focus on nearby objects)

• Uses pictorial depth cues

 PERCEPTION
• Linear perspective

• Relative size

• Height in the plane (horizon line)

• Light and shadow

• Overlap (aka interposition/occlusion)

• Texture gradients

• Relative motion
• Example of motion
parallax/relative motion
 APPLICATION
• Applying perception: virtual reality
• There is a demand for artists, animators, etc
for software development using virtual reality
technology
• VR is being applied in clinical practice for
OCD (hoarding item removal), PTSD
(exposure therapy), schizophrenia (social
exposure, coping skills), pain management
(coping skills), eating disorders (cue exposure
therapy), autism (social skill exposure),
anxiety (exposure therapy), and addictive
behaviors (exposure therapy) (Maples-Keller,
Bunnell, Kim & Rothnaum, 2017; Worley,
2019; Anderson, Zimland, Hodges, &
Rothbaum, 2005, Beidel et al, 2019).