Psychology 11 Unit 5 – Human Perception, Emotion & Motivation Having completed this unit you will be able to: 1. Identify the relationship between sensation and perception. 2. Briefly explain attention. 3. Explain the senses of vision and hearing and give an overview of the other senses. 4. Describe motivation, drives, and motives. 5. Discuss emotions and identify some theories to explain them. 6. Understand some ways in which emotions are measured. Psychology 11 Unit 5 – Human Perception, Emotion & Motivation Ch 12 – Sensation & Perception Ch 13 – Motivation & Emotions

Chapter 12 – Sensation & Perception This Chapter Presents: The relationship between sensation & perception An overview of attention A detailed look at the senses of vison & hearing A brief discussion of the other senses Sensation & perception are two important concepts in psychology. Sensation refers to the arousal of a sense organ by something in the environment, i.e. your eyes seeing the text on the screen Perception refers to the interpretation of this sensation, i.e. seeing how many ‘f’s there are in this statement… You may see 6, but only perceived 3… Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of many years 6

Lets talk about Perceptions… As noted, perceptions are “the way in which we interpret a sensation.” Sensations including seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting Perceptions are not “mirrors” of the world around us (what does that mean? Mirror = reflection, so us smelling turkey is just something we pick up on that is around us) But why not a mirror of what is around us? We cannot sense everything around us (i.e. dog whistle) We perceive things that aren’t around us (i.e. dreams) Expectations influence perceptual experiences (i.e. you think you hear or smell something, when really you haven’t) Perceptions are also based on perceived changes in sensation; i.e. the contrasting images enabling you to see the edges of the triangles – we need these changes to prevent a world of “oneness”

Subliminal Perception… A type of perception which involves stimuli that are so weak we are not aware of them, and are not able to report on them, are known as subliminal perceptions Also including subliminal messages, these stimuli were thought to be the wave of the future in regards to conveying a message to an unsuspecting audience, i.e. hidden messages during movies that deal with popcorn To be a successful subliminal stimulation certain requirements must be met: The speed of the stimulation (i.e. too long = not subliminal) The nature of the stimulation immediately after the subliminal stimulation (i.e. the availability of popcorn) The general train of thought of the viewer (i.e. hunger + food stimuli) The number of times one is exposed to the stimulus (i.e. not too few, but not too much) Drink Pepsi not Coke!

What Stimuli do we interpret & why? As we know, we are surrounded by stimuli all of the time; so much in fact that it is impossible to take it all in… If we did take it all in, we would be so overwhelmed by all of the sensations that we wouldn’t process very much… Only certain stimuli gain our attention – the task at hand, a quick shift in focus, or something that interests or influences us generally wins Attention – is the process of focusing your perception on a limited number of stimuli Not only do we pay attention to stimuli that we purposely chose to pay attention to, but we also have stimuli ‘break in’ on us i.e. think of when you’re engaged in one conversation and you hear your name mentioned in another one

Stimuli that make the cut… Stimuli usually have certain characteristics that make us pay attention to them Intensity, size, contrast, movement, changes, novelty, and repetition; any of these characteristics or a combination of them will garner our attention more so than any other type of stimuli Think of how certain characteristics of certain products jump out at you through advertising etc… Another reason why certain stimuli make the cut over others is due to the individual being targeted i.e. you’re hungry and the restaurant with the brightest sign catches your eye more so than if you were not hungry The needs, attitudes, expectations, motives, past experiences of a person plays a large role in what a person pays attention to

Crash Course & Perception…