Sensation &

Perception
basic terminology
 Scientific Names for the Six Senses
(You Should Know These)

• Seeing: Visual
• Hearing: Auditory
• Tasting: Gustatory
• Smelling: Olfactory
• Sense of Touch: Tactile
• Balance: Vestibular
Sensation
Information coming into our brain from our sensory
receivers

Perception
The way the brain organizes and interprets the data
received by our senses

Can you have sensation without perception?

Prosopagnosia
Complete sensation in the absence of perception
Example of Prosopagnosia: FACE BLINDNESS
 Bottom-up Processing
Analysis of the stimulus begins with the sense
receptors and works up to the level of the brain and
mind.

Letter “A” is really a black blotch broken down into

features by the brain that we perceive as an “A.”
 Top-Down Processing
•Information processing guided by higher-level
mental processes as we construct perceptions,
drawing on our experience and expectations.

•Top Down Processing explains how our

expectations and prior experiences guide our
perceptions.

THE CHT
 Bottom Up Vs. Top Down

• What do you see?

Bottom Up vs. Top Down

What do You See?

 Top-Down Processing

• Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it

deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,
the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer
be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses
and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter
by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Sensation vs. Perception
What do you see?
Sensation vs. Perception
What do you see?
Sensation vs. Perception
What do you see?
Making Sense of Complexity

“The Forest Has Eyes,” Bev Doolittle

How many faces do you see?

 Psychophysics
• Psychophysics: study of the
relationship between physical
characteristics of stimuli and our
psychological experience of them

– Light - brightness
– Sound - volume
– Pressure - weight
– Taste - sweetness
 Thresholds
Absolute Threshold
Minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular
stimulus 50% of the time.

Subliminal Messages
Messages presented below absolute thresholds – not
consciously perceived
 “Subliminal Messages”
• Some have argued that humans still “pick up”
these messages that influence our “unconscious.”
Do these messages have suggestive powers?

• Skeptics argue “Subliminal Messages” are

heavily influenced by top down processes.

• Example: Feeling “hungry” during subliminal

advertisements.

Mr. Subliminal
 “Subliminal Messages”
• What does the research say?
Subliminal Message In Beer Ad?
Subliminal Messages In Money
Subliminal Message In
“The Lion King?”
Difference Threshold
Amount of change needed to notice that a change
has occurred.

Weber’s Law: The greater or stronger the

stimulus, the greater the change required to notice that a
change has occurred. The two stimuli must differ by a
constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant
amount), to be perceived as different.
JND = just noticeable difference
 Sensation: Thresholds
• Signal Detection Theory: predicts how and
when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus
(signal) amid background stimulation (noise)

• Assumes that there is no single absolute

threshold

• What might a person’s detection of a

stimulus depend on?
 Sensory Adaptation
Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant
stimulation.

Put a band aid on your arm and after awhile

you don’t sense it.
Now you see, now you don’t
The EYE
vision
 key name

David HUBEL &

Torsten WIESEL

• Discovered that most cells in the visual

cortex only respond to particular
features. For example, maybe a cell responds only to lines
at this \ angle.

Wiesel was awarded the 1981 Nobel prize in Medicine and Physiology. His Nobel Lecture
was entitled 'The postnatal development of the visual cortex and influence of
environment.’ Wiesel recognized that covering one eye of a young animal could cause that
eye to lose its connection to the visual cortex.
 Feature Detection
Nerve cells in the visual cortex respond to
specific features, such as edges, angles, and
movement.
Ross Kinnaird/ Allsport/ Getty Images
The Eye
 Biology of Vision: Know the Steps
1. Light enters the eye through the cornea:
(transparent protector) and passes through the
pupil: (small opening/hole).

2. The size of the opening (pupil) is regulated by

the iris: the colored portion of your eye that is
a muscular tissue which widens or constricts the
pupil causing either more or less light to get in.
 Biology of Vision: Know the Steps
3. Behind the pupil, the lens, a transparent structure,
changes its curvature in a process called
accomodation, and focuses the light rays into an
image on the light-sensitive back surface called the
retina: where image is focused.
 Biology of Vision: Know the Steps
4. Image coming through activates photoreceptors in the
retina called rods and cones (process information
for darkness and color).

5. As rods and cones set off chemical reactions they form

a synapse with bipolar cells which transducts light
energy into neural impulses.

6. The action potential travels along the ganglion cells

which send information up the optic nerve (bundle
of neurons that take information from retina to the
brain)
 Biology of Vision: Know the Steps
7. The Optic Nerve carries neural information to be
processed by the Thalamus (sensory switchboard).

8. Thalamus sends information to the visual cortex

which resides in the occipital lobe.

9. The brain then constructs what you are seeing and

turns image right side up.
 Parts of Retina
1. Fovea: central focal point of the retina, where cones
cluster.

2. Cones: photoreceptor located near center of retina

(fovea)
– fine detail and color vision
– daylight or well-lit conditions

3. Rods: photoreceptor located near peripheral retina

– detect black, white and gray
– twilight or low light

4. Bipolar Cells: create visual neural impulses

 Most Common Errors In Vision
• Acuity: the sharpness of vision

• Nearsightedness:
– nearby objects seen more clearly
– lens focuses image of distant objects in front of retina

• Farsightedness:
– faraway objects seen more clearly
– lens focuses near objects behind retina
COLOR
vision
Physical Characteristics of Light

Wavelength = hue/color

Different wavelengths of light result in different colors.

Violet Indigo Blue Green Yellow Orange Red

400 nm 700 nm
Short wavelengths Long wavelengths
Amplitude = intensity/brightness
 COLOR mixing
Subtractive Color Mixing
mixing pigments (like paint). Result is:

Additive Color Mixing

mixing different colored lights. Result is:
 Retina
Retina: The light-
sensitive inner
surface of the eye,
containing receptor
rods and cones in
addition to layers of
other neurons
(bipolar, ganglion
cells) that process
visual information.
 Photoreceptors

Let’s do a little experiment

to “map” our rods & cones

E.R. Lewis, Y.Y. Zeevi, F.S Werblin, 1969

 key name

Thomas YOUNG &

Hermann HELMOLTZ
• Trichromatic color theory (RGB) - some
cones are especially sensitive to red, some
to green, some to blue
Typical cases of Color Blindness
support the Trichromatic theory.
 Opponent Process Theory
There are three opponent channels:

red vs. green

blue vs. yellow
& black vs.white

While the trichromatic theory defines the way the retina of the eye allows
the visual system to detect color with three types of cones, the opponent
process theory accounts for mechanisms that receive and process
information from cones.
 Opponent Process Theory
Gaze at the middle of the flag.
When it disappears, stare at the dot and report
whether or not you see Britain's flag.

What just happened is called a NEGATIVE AFTERIMAGE

• another example of OPPONENT PROCESS
THEORY: the Castle Illusion