Psyc 2301 chapter five powerpoint 1(1)(1)

Chapter Five

Sensation and Perception

Sensation vs. Perception

Sensation –What comes into our body through our sensory organs

Perception –What our brain does with that information

A Little Test

• Unscramble the words Activity

The Expectancy Effect

• Our expectations (i.e., preconceptions about what we are supposed to perceive) can influence our perception.

• We just proved this through our experiment!

• (80-90% of students)

How Do We Study Sensation?

Psychophysics• Study of the

relationship between a physical stimulus and your perception of it.

• Concerned mostly with physical attributes of the stimulus (e.g., amp & loudness).Gustav FechnerGustav Fechner

Father of Psychophysics

In other words…

Psychophysics: The point• To learn about our senses by

pushing them to the limits

Example: the auditory system• – Play a sound very quietly• – Eventually it’ll be so quiet, you may not be

able to hear it• – Absolute threshold: the loudness that people

say they can hear the sound 50% of the time

Sensory Adaptation

• Do you feel your clothes if they are still?

• How about hearing a sound that hums in

the background consistently?

How do we know that we share the same reality?

• Color blindness• Blindness• Deafness• Schizophrenia

“There is no reality. There is only perception.”

Sensory ProcessesSensory Processes

Visual information processingVisual information processing• Feature detectionFeature detection• Parallel processingParallel processing

Color visionColor vision• HueHue• SaturationSaturation• BrightnessBrightness• Color constancyColor constancy

p. 74p. 74

Sensory ProcessesSensory Processes

Hearing (audition)Hearing (audition)• Sound wavesSound waves

AmplitudeAmplitude

O decibels – absolute thresholdO decibels – absolute threshold

85+ - produce hearing loss85+ - produce hearing loss

140+ - rock bands140+ - rock bands• Locating soundsLocating sounds

Sound shadowSound shadow EcholocationEcholocation

A demonstrationA demonstration

Sensory ProcessesSensory Processes

Smell (olfaction)Smell (olfaction)• Age and sex differencesAge and sex differences

Taste (gustation)Taste (gustation)• Taste budsTaste buds• MicrovilliMicrovilli

What’s that Smell Activity???

Flavor Activity

Attention and PerceptionAttention and Perception

**Unattended stimuli and pop-out stimuli**Unattended stimuli and pop-out stimuli• Cocktail party effectCocktail party effect• Pop-out stimuliPop-out stimuli

**Multi-tasking**Multi-tasking

• http://youtu.be/xO_oEGHWSMU

Theories of PerceptionTheories of Perception

Theories of PerceptionTheories of Perception

Sensation and Perception - intro.ppt © 2001 Laura Snodgrass, Ph.D.

Homework

• Read Chapter Six

• See you Thursday!