1. AP Psychology Sept. 28th Objective Opener
Understand how your brain takes in information to produce sensation.

2. Sensation & Perception
Chapter 3
Sensation & Perception
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3. Sensation and Perception
A process by which a simulated receptor create a pattern of neural messages that represent the stimulus in the brain
Perception
A process that makes sensory patterns meaningful

4. Transduction Transduction
Converts a form of physical energy into the form of neural messages

5. Stimulation Becomes Perception
Figure Stimulation Becomes Perception For visual stimulation to become meaningful perception, it must undergo several transformations. First, physical stimulation (light waves from the butterfly) is transduced by the eye, where information about the wavelength and intensity of the light is coded into neural signals. Second, the neural messages travel to the sensory cortex of the brain, where they become sensations of color, brightness, form, and movement. Finally, the process of perception interprets these sensations by making connections with memories, expectations, emotions, and motives in other parts of the brain. Similar processes operate on the information taken in by the other senses.

6. Thresholds Absolute Threshold Difference Threshold
Amount of stimulation necessary for a stimulus to be detected
Difference Threshold
Smallest amount by which a stimulus can be changed and the difference be detected (also called just noticeable difference: JND)

7. Thresholds Weber’s Law
The size of the JND is proportional to the intensity of the stimulus.
The JND is always large when the stimulus intensity is high, and small when the stimulus intensity is low.

8. Signal Detection Theory
Sensation depends on the characteristics of the stimulus, the background information, and the detector.
Stimulus event
Neural activity
Comparison with personal standard
Action (or no action)

9. The Anatomy of Visual Sensation

10. Transduction of Light in the Retina

11. How the Visual System Creates Color and Brightness
Wavelength
Intensity (amplitude)
Color
Brightness

12. How the Visual System Creates Color
Trichromatic Theory
Based on three different cone receptors
Explains initial stages of color sensation
Opponent-Process Theory
Based on bipolar cells
Colors in complementary pairs
Explains afterimages

13. Afterimages Afterimages
Sensations that linger after the stimulus is removed
In the following slide, fix your eyes on the dot in the center of the flag.

15. How the Visual System Creates Color
Color Blindness
Vision disorder that prevents an individual from discriminating certain colors

16. How We Hear Sound Waves
Cochlea

17. Auditory Stimulation Becomes Sensation
Table 3.3

18. Decibel Levels of Different Sounds
The sound adults can’t hear?

19. Position and Movement Vestibular Sense Kinesthetic Sense
Sense of body orientation with respect to gravity
receptors in semicircular canals
Kinesthetic Sense
Sense of body position and movement of body parts relative to each other
receptors in joints, muscles, and tendons

20. Smell Olfaction Olfactory Bulbs Pheromones Sense of smell
Brain sites of olfactory processing
Pheromones
Chemical signals released by organisms to communicate with other members of the species

21. Receptors for Smell

22. Receptors for Taste

23. The Skin Senses
The skin protects against surface injury, holds in bodily fluid, and helps regulate body temperature.
Touch
Warmth
Cold
Texture
Pain

24. Pain Arises from intense stimulations Phantom Limb Gate Control Theory
Nociceptors (nerve cells) sense painful/unpleasant stimuli.
affected by mood and expectation
Phantom Limb
An amputee feels sensations coming from missing the body part due to the brain generating sensation.
Gate Control Theory
Explains pain control
Involves special interneurons that open or close the pain pathway running up the spinal cord toward the brain

25. Creating New Senses?