Sensation and Perception

Can you name all of the senses?

(there are 10 of them)
 10 Senses
Vision
Hearing
Taste
Smell
Pain
Pressure
Hot
Cold
Kinesthesis (perception of body
movements and position)
Vestibular (inner ear;
orientation of the head)
 Sensation
How our sensory receptors and nervous
system receive information from our
environment.
 Perception
The process of selecting information from the
environment
The interpretation of information from the
environment
It is how we make
sense of the world
 Introduction

Sensation
Perception
Are one
continuous
process
 Introduction
Bottom-up processing: starts at the
sensory receptors and works up to the
higher levels of processing (i.e. detecting
lines, angles, and colors in a picture)
Top-down processing: constructs
perceptions from the sensory input, as we
draw on our experience and expectations
(i.e. interpreting a picture of a teddy bear)
Dual Processing
 Selective Attention
Find all the complete cats and dogs
 Selective Attention: focusing your conscious
awareness on one particular stimulus
 Selective Attention
Cocktail party effect: selective listening (you
can focus on one voice at a party, even when
it is noisy and full of other voices)
 Selective Attention Tests
Go to joshualoweteacher.weebly.com
Unit 4: Sensation and Perception
Module 16
Awareness Test #1 and #2
 Selective Attention
Selective Inattention
Inattentional blindness: failing to
see visual objects when our
attention is directed elsewhere
 Selective Attention
Selective Inattention
Change blindness: failing to
notice changes in the
environment
Go to
joshualoweteacher.weebly.com
Module 16
Change blindness
 Stroop Effect Online
Go to joshualoweteacher.weebly.com
Module 16
Stroop Effect Test (follow directions)
 Transduction & Thresholds
Transduction: transforming stimulus into
neural impulses our brain can interpret
Thresholds:
Absolute thresholds: minimum stimulus needed
to detect a stimulus 50% of the time
Signal detection theory: assumes there is no
absolute threshold and that detection depends on
experience, expectation, motivation, and
alertness.
 Thresholds
Absolute Thresholds
Absolute threshold
50 % of the time
Signal detection theory
 Thresholds
Absolute Thresholds
Subliminal
Cannot detect
Below absolute threshold

There exists controversy as to whether people actually

attend to the information presented below absolute
threshold. Will it impact behavior?

Backmasking-Jeff Milner: Backmasking website

 Thresholds
Difference Thresholds
Difference threshold
Just noticeable difference (jnd): minimum
difference between two stimuli required to
detect a change 50% of the time
Webers Law
Constant minimum percentage
50 ounce weights 2 ounce jnd
100 ounce weights 4 ounce jnd
 Sensory Adaptation

Sensory Adaptation: diminished

ability to perceive a stimulus due
to constant exposure
Video- module 16
Sensory adaptation
 Sensory Adaptation
Emotion Adaptation
 Sensory Adaptation
Emotion Adaptation
 Sensory Adaptation
Emotion Adaptation
 Sensory Adaptation
Emotion Adaptation
 Sensory Adaptation
Emotion Adaptation
 The Art of Misdirection
(selective attention)
Module 16
The Art of Misdirection
Start at 3:40