1. Sensation and Perception
Sensation: your window to the world
Perception: interpreting what comes in your window.

2. Introducing,….Sensation!
“Seeing is believing.”
For each of the following visuals, simply write down what you see. (Do not share with your neighbor.)

6. Analyzing what we see….
Each visual provides sensory information that gives rise to two totally different perceptual interpretations.
Now, lets try it again…
Write down what you see first in the next visual image.

8. Sensation and visual images
Why is it that no matter how many times we look at the image, we tend to see the image we saw the first time we observed it?
First impression = schema
Have to consciously seek the other figure
After practice, we can see both images, but not simultaneously

9. So, what is Sensation & Perception?
The physical energy we detect from the environment and encode as neural impulses (what we sense and send to the brain)
Perception
How we select, interpret and organize our sensations (how the brain interprets it)
5.2 Top Picture—to show the difference between sensation and perception. Looks like a meaningless blotch, students will try to figure it out—stimulation/sensation is being received but not perceived. The subject is a dog, and only part of a dog. Students will probably try to see the whole dog; you cannot tell figure from ground
5.2 Bottom picture—Fraser Spiral—it looks like a spiral but is actually a set of concentric circles

10. In other words…
Sensation provides the raw information that perception translates into our experiences

11. Sensation :
The Forest Has Eyes
sensation and perception work together to sort out complex processes
The Forest Has Eyes is the title of this work---in studying it we look at the expressions on the faces, there is something foreboding about this picture, and after we have read the title we notice other things…

12. Sensation and Perception (Work together)
Bottom-Up Processing (Sensation)
Sense receptors detect stimuli and send to the brain
the brain then integrates sensory information
Top-Down Processing (Perception)
information processing guided by higher-level mental processes
How we interpret sensations- based on expectations and previous experiences
Top Down is the involvement of the brain in making meaning out of stimuli. For example there are people who can see everything clearly (sensation) but cannot recognize even their own faces (perception).
Placing meaning to sensations and stimuli is the act of perception

13. Top Down Processing
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabridge Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in what oredr the ltteers in a word are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is that the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe.

14. Top Down Processing
How were you able to immediately make sense of these scrambled words?
Our experience and expectations enable us to immediately perceive the scrambled letters as meaningful words and sentences.
Higher level processes guide our perceptions.

15. Distinguishing Between Sensation and Perception
Fraser Spiral (5.2)
Place one finger on any line composing the spiral.
Place a finger from your other hand beside it and begin tracing the circle while holding your first finger in place.
What happens?

16. Failures of Perception
Prosopagnosia: complete sensation but incomplete perception (“face blindness”)
Can sense visual information, but can’t recognize it (can’t relate stored knowledge to sensory input)
Damage to temporal lobe area (recognition)

17. Sensation- Basic Principles
Psychophysics
study of how physical energy relates to our psychological experience (Or: study of interaction between sensations we receive and our experience of them.)
Light- brightness
Sound- volume
Pressure- weight
Taste- sweetness

18. Sensation and Perception
Sensation & Perception
6/5/2018
Sensation and Perception
Defining sensation and perception
The riddle of separate senses.
Measuring the senses.
Sensory adaptation.
Sensory overload.
©1999 Prentice Hall
©1999 Prentice Hall

19. Sensation & Perception
6/5/2018
Ambiguous Figure
Colored surface can be either the outside front surface or the inside back surface
Cannot simultaneously be both
Brain can interpret the ambiguous cues two different ways
©1999 Prentice Hall
©1999 Prentice Hall

20. Sensation & Perception Processes
6/5/2018
Sensation & Perception Processes
Figure 3.Davis 2 from:
Kassin, S. (1998). Psychology, second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
©1999 Prentice Hall
©1999 Prentice Hall