PSYC1000C

General Psychology
2023-24 Term 2 (Spring Term)
Lecture 3: Sensation and Perception
Lecturer: Vince NGAN

Teaching Assistants:
Shawn HEMELSTRAND
Kate HUANG
Siyi ZHAO
Recap of Previous Lesson
 Why psychology is a science
 Scientific inquiries help correct biases and give clarity
 The scientific method
 Observation, hypothesis, measurement, interpretation
 Different types of studies
 Observation, correlational studies, experiments
 Understanding and critiquing experiments
 IV/DV, subject characteristics, choices of measurements,
experimental procedures
 More complex designs and experimental concepts
 Studies across population, across time, and across researchers
 Validity, reliability, and different types of statistics
 Research ethics
 Disclosure of information, fairness, power over participants,
risks/benefits appraisal, etc.
Readings for L2
Required
 Chapter 2

Optional
 “Small Nudge, Big Impact” (available on course website)
 “How hard is hard science, how soft is soft science”
(available on course website)
 Association for Psychological Science website
([Link]
More complex designs
Cross-sectional study: Data obtained from people of
differing ages
 Cohort effect: The generational effects of having been born
at a particular point in history
Longitudinal study: Data obtained from the same
individuals over a long period of time
Mixed longitudinal study: Combines cross-sectional
and longitudinal approaches over a shorter period of
time
 Faster and less expensive
Putting together multiple experiments
Meta-analysis
Statistical analysis of many previous experiments on
the same topic to provide clearer picture than isolated
experiment

Publication bias: Possibility that they are not

representative of all work done on a particular
problem
Validity vs. Reliability
 Validity:
the extent to
which a measure or
assessment tool is
measuring what it is
supposed to be measuring

 Reliability:the extent to
which a measure or
assessment tool produces
consistent and stable
results over time or across
different raters or
observers Attribution: © Nevit Dilmen
Descriptive Statistics
Organize data into meaningful
patterns, such as averages
Central Tendency: Pattern of
distribution of data (Mean,
mode, and median)
Variance: How clustered /
spread scores are
Standard Deviation: A measure
of how tightly the data cluster
around the mean
Normal Distribution: A
symmetrical probability function
Inferential Statistics
Allowsthe extension of conclusions to larger
populations

Null hypothesis: A hypothesis stating the default

position has no real difference between two measures
Statistical significance: A standard for deciding
whether an observed result is likely in the event of a
true null hypothesis

You will learn more if you take an introductory

statistics class in Psychology or elsewhere
 Knowledge Check:
MythBusters Exercise
Is yawning contagious?
Is yawning contagious?
% of yawned
Experimental group 29%
Control group 25%

 Is it an experiment?
 IV? DV?
 Experimental group vs. Control group?
 Random assignment?

Do the findings support their conclusion? other characteristics？

 Alternative ways of conducting the study?

 Try touse the knowledge you learnt in this and the

previous class to answer this question!
Extension topic
How to research in an ethical way
Research Ethics
 Ethical Considerations
 In doing research with humans or animals, researchers must
weigh possible harm that may be inflicted against the
usefulness and other benefits that may be gained.

 Safeguarding human subjects’ well-being

 Informed consent
 Protection from harm
 Voluntariness
 Confidentiality
 Debriefing
 Knowledge of results Safeguards:
 Deception
Ethics Committee
Internal Review Board
 Beneficial treatment
 Animal research
Ethics
• Scenario 1
A researcher wants to study one-year-old infants’
reactions to separation from their mothers (or
primary caregivers), in order to develop better
ways for mothers and day cares to handle
separation anxiety. He plans to have mothers
leave their infants alone in a room for several
minutes. The infants will be videotaped to record
their reactions, which the researcher knows are
often very strong and distressed.
Ethics
• Scenario 2
A researcher wants to study young children’s reactions
to sexual abuse, and how children’s reactions differ
based on age, in order to help refine psychologists’
therapeutic methods. She plans to study children from
ages 5-15. She plans to conduct a clinical interview with
each child in order to assess the effects of the abuse.
She recognizes that the interview may be difficult for
the kids, but believes that the benefits of her study
outweigh the risks, and plans to explain to the children
that they can stop the interview at any time.
Ethics
• Scenario 3
A researcher wants to study early adolescents’ emotional
reactions to success and failure in mathematics, in order
to help design better math tutorial programs for schools.
She plans to give a math test to 2 groups of adolescents:
regardless of their true performance, one group will be
told that they performed very well, and one group will be
told that they performed poorly. She plans to videotape
the adolescents when they are given their scores, so
their facial expressions can serve as a measure of
emotional reaction.
Ethics
• Scenario 4
A researcher wants to test the effects of a new
drug, NILATIR, on children who have been
diagnosed with severe cases of ADHD. This drug
has been used as a nutritional supplement for years,
and is considered safe by the FDA. Anecdotal
evidence suggests that this drug may be key to
relieving symptoms of ADHD. The researcher gives
one group of kids the drug for a month, and the
other group of kids get a placebo. At the end of the
month, the kids are observed at school.
 Summary
Scientific Ethics
Method

Study Design +
Theory & Data
Data Data Analyses
Hypothesis Interpretation
Collection

Observation Correlational Experiment

Not easy, nor perfect, but wonderful
“All our science, measured against
reality, is primitive and childlike. And yet
it is the most precious thing we have.”
– Albert Einstein

“Ihave not failed. I have just found

10,000 things that do not work.”

- Thomas Edison, 1847–1931

Sensation and Perception
How do we make sense of the world?
Can we believe what we see?
Overview
Sensation
 Vision: The eye and the optic nerve
 Color vision

Perception
 The challenge: ambiguous input
 Strategies: active information sampling & interpretation
 Bottom-up information
 Top-down knowledge / expectations
 Action during perception
 Examples
 Figure-ground segregation
 Depth perception

 Extension topic: Sensation and perception beyond vision

Readings for L3
Required
 Chapter 5

Optional
 Chapter 1 (pp. 8-38)
of David Marr’s Book “Vision: A
Computational Investigation into the Human
Representation and Processing of Visual Information”.
 [Link]
 Chapter. 17-21 of of William James’ “Principles of
Psychology”.
 [Link]

22
What Color is the Dress?
The human eye can see
many different colors, but
what does it mean to “see”
a color?

What colors do you see? Do

you see white and gold, or
blue/black?

Is the dress in a

shadow? In
bright light? What other
cues do we use to identify
color? Source: Slate
24
 Sensation is the conversion of energy
from the environment into a pattern
Sensation of response by the nervous system.
Stimulus received by
sensory receptors
Receptors translate stimulus
properties into nerve impulses
(transduction)
Feature detectors analyze
stimulus features
Features are put together into a
neural representation
Representation is compared
with what is in memory
Perception is the Recognition and interpretation
interpretation of this of a stimulus
information. Perception

25
Cornea: Clear surface at the front of
the eye. Directs light to retina
Pupil: Opening formed by the iris
Iris: Brightly colored circular muscle
surrounds pupil
Lens: Clear structure behind the pupil
that bends light toward retina
Retina: Layers of visual processing
cells in back of eye

26
Fovea: Area of retina that is specialized for highly detailed vision
Photoreceptors: three types
 Rods: Photoreceptor specialized to detect dim light
 Cones: Photoreceptor in retina that processes color and fine detail 27
Rods and cones: photoreceptors Transduction:
Translation of incoming
Light → electrochemical
sensory information into
Feed into bipolar and then ganglion cells neural signals
28
→ optic nerve
29
Central vs. peripheral vision

30
Central vs. peripheral vision

31
The blind spot

32
The blind spot

33
Optic nerve: Formed
when axons from
ganglion cells leave the
back of the eye
Optic chiasm: Axons
closest to the nose
cross over to the other
hemisphere. Helps
depth perception
Optic tracts: Nerve
pathways traveling
from optic chiasm to
the thalamus,
hypothalamus, and
midbrain

34
Primary visual cortex
responds to object shape,
location, movement, and
color.
Parietal pathway helps us
process movement.
Temporal pathway
responds to shape and
color, and contributes to
our ability to recognize
objects and faces.

35
Overview
Sensation
 Vision: The eye and the optic nerve
Color vision

Perception
 The challenge: ambiguous input
 Strategies: active information sampling & interpretation
 Bottom-up information
 Top-down knowledge / expectations
 Action during perception
 Examples
 Figure-ground segregation
 Depth perception
Color Vision
The Young-Helmholtz or TRICHROMATIC theory
 Our receptors respond to three primary colors.

 Color vision
depends on the relative rate of response by
the three types of cones.

 Each type of
cone is most sensitive to a specific range of
electromagnetic wavelengths.
 Short wavelengths are seen as blue.
 Medium wavelengths are seen as green.
 Long wavelengths are seen as red.

37
Color addition as an analogy

38
Figure 4.13 Sensitivity of three types of cones to different wavelengths of light. (Based on data of
Bowmaker & Dartnall, 1980) 39
However…

Green Red

Blue Yellow
Color Vision
The Opponent-Process Theory
 TRICHROMATIC theory does not account for some of the
more complicated aspects of color perception.

 E.g. Peopleexperience 4 colors (not 3) as primary – red,

green, blue and yellow.
 Experience of color afterimages

41
Color Vision
Opponent-Process
The Theory (Hering)

 We perceive color not in terms of separate categories but

rather in a system of paired opposites.
Red vs. Green Yellow vs. Blue White vs. black

 Color after-images results from alternating stimulation and

inhibition of neurons in the visual system: A bipolar neuron
that responds strongly to yellow will be inhibited by blue.
After you’ve stared at a yellow object, your fatigued bipolar
cells will behave as if it’s been inhibited, and yield a
sensation of blue.
Sensory adaptation: The tendency to
experience less stimulation from a non-
changing source of stimulation
42
Color Vision
The Retinex Theory (Land)
 Thetrichromatic and opponent-process theories don’t
account for our experience of color constancy: the
tendency of an object to appear nearly the same color
under very different lighting conditions.

 By comparing different patterns of light from different

areas of the retina, neurons in the cortex construct a
color perception for each area.

45
 This trick does not
work only with color!

46
Conclusion
Even in the very first phases ofsensation/perception,
the mind has already processed the information about
the environment so much that our understanding of
the world is “constructed reality”

An example is the exaggeration of contrasts

 Opponent processes in color perception
 Other e.g. Ebbinghaus illusion, Mach band...

Another example is experiencing the same content

regardless of changes in other irrelevant aspects
 Separation of perception of color under different illumination
conditions, depth perception, etc.

47
Overview
Sensation
 Vision: The eye & the optic nerve
 Color vision

Perception
 The challenge: ambiguous input
 Strategies: active information sampling & interpretation
 Bottom-up information
 Top-down knowledge / expectations
 Action during perception
 Examples
 Figure-ground segregation
 Depth perception
The challenge of perception
For any given retinal image, there are an infinite variety of
possible 3D structures that can give rise to it.

Dale Purves

50
Your retina gets only a 2D projection
of a 3D world

51
How to solve the problem of perception?
The goal of perception: allow us to gain knowledge of
our environment (what is out there?) and help guide
our actions.

The problem of perception: For any given pattern of

stimulation received by your senses, there are an
infinite number of possible events that could have
produced it.

HOW can we ever figure out what is out there?

52
How to solve the problem of perception?

Three solutions that help make perception less

ambiguous:
Use of multiple sources of bottom-up information
Use of top-down knowledge / expectations to
resolve ambiguities
 innate or learned
Use of action to improve sampling
of information

53
Figure-ground segregation – the
power of expectations

54
 Gestalt Principles help organize the scene

Proximity

Closure

Good continuation Similarity

55
Which principles involved?

56
Common Fate

Also try: [Link]

57
Sometimes the perception of the
scene is ambiguous
Here, two different
Gestalt principles
compete: what
are they?

[Link]
58
 Perception
More examples of top-down processing

59
 Perception
More examples of top-down processing

60
 Perception
More examples of top-down processing

“Aoccdrnig to a 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 toatl mses and you can
sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn
mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a
wlohe.”

61
Depth Perception – using multiple
sources of information
Monocular cues
 Accommodation
 Relative Size
 Elevation
 Superposition
 Linear Perspective
 Aerial Perspective
 Shadows
 Texture gradients

Binocular cues
 Convergence & Divergence
 Retinal Disparity

Using action to gain more information

Prior experience (top down)

62
 Depth Perception

Monocular cues
Accommodation
Relative Size
Elevation
Superposition
Linear Perspective
Aerial Perspective
Shadows
Texture gradients
Binocular cues

63
Depth Perception

Monocular cues
Accommodation
Relative Size
Elevation
Superposition
Linear Perspective
Aerial Perspective
Shadows
Texture gradients
Binocular cues
Magritte, Carte Blanche, 1965

64
 Depth Perception

Monocular cues
Accommodation
Relative Size
Elevation
Superposition
Linear Perspective
Aerial Perspective
Shadows
Texture gradients
Binocular cues

65
Depth Perception

Monocular cues
Accommodation
Relative Size
Elevation
Superposition
Linear Perspective
Aerial Perspective Magritte, The Glass Key, 1959
Shadows
Texture gradients  Diffraction of Light by Dust, Moisture
Binocular cues  “Bluing” of Distance

66
Shadows
67
Texture gradients

68
 Binocular Cues for the Perception of Distance
Convergence
- To look at an object closer by, the eyes rotate 'towards
each other'

Divergence
…while for an object farther away they rotate 'away
from each other'

69
Binocular Cues for the Perception of Distance

Retinal Disparity
Gives us stereopsis

 Eyes separated by 2-3 inches

 Each receives somewhat different image of object
 2-Dimensional images on retina
 fused into 3-dimensional image in brain

70
 Your action counts too!
Motion parallax
 [Link]

Bogdanova et al. (2016) 71

Prior experience (top down)

72
73
 Müller-Lyer illusion
 Left line is seen as representing inside corner whereas the
right line is seen as an outside corner. From our experiences,
inside corner appears farther away from us. So when the two
lines equally long physically, the left line appears longer.
 People with less exposure to modern architecture, with its
sharp corners, are less prone to Müller-Lyer illusion. 74
Important take-home message for
human perception!
The process of sensation and perception is not a passive,
one-direction pipeline

Bottom-up processing: Perception based on building

simple input into complex perceptions
Top-down processing: Perceptual process in which
memory processes are required for interpreting incoming
sensory information

These two processes interact and give rise to human

experiences of the outside world
Conclusion
Sensation and Perception studies demonstrated the
progress of theories based on data and counter-examples

Perception is faced withthe challenge of many possible

interpretations given impoverished input

Multiple sources of information converge to our

interpretation of what is happening in the environment

Perception is notsimply passive reception of information,

but active as shown in the sampling of information (e.g.,
motion parallex) and processing and interpretation of
information (knowledge and top-down effects)

76
 Extension topic
Sensation and Perception Beyond Vision
Human audition
Audition: The sense of hearing

More accurately, it is the transformation

(transduction) of sound waves into neural signals

Pinna collects sound waves

Tympanic membrane
vibrates with the waves
Cochlea receives vibrations

Image by Jennifer Walinga and Charles Stangor

78
 Human cochlea
 Vibrations are
transmitted into
the cochlea through a series of
small bones (ossicles)

 Cochlea isfull of fluid, and

vibrations passing through the
oval window generate standing
waves inside the cochlea

 Inside
cochlea, on the basilar
membrane, are the organs
of Corti, which are receptors
responsible for transducing [Link]
these waves into neural signals 79
Ascending auditory pathway
Auditory signals then
transmit from the cochlea
up through the auditory
nerve
They pass through the
brainstem, midbrain and
thalamus
And then arrive at the
auditory cortex, where
perception of sounds is
processed

[Link]
How do we perceive loudness?
 In general, what we perceive is not uniformly proportional to
the intensity of physical stimuli outside
 Humans evolved to be selectively sensitive to differences most
relevant to our survival (evolutionary psychology)
 Humans can hear frequencies
from 20Hz to 20000Hz, but we
usually hear 2000 to 5000Hz
the best
 Equal-loudness contour:
The red line means the sound
pressure levels (a physical measure
of sound wave induced pressure
difference) needed to maintain
constant perceived loudness at
different frequencies
 Middle frequencies require lowest SPLs
 How do we perceive pitch?
 Place theorysuggests that
the frequency of a sound is
correlated with the part of
the basilar membrane
showing a peak response

 Temporal theory suggests

the patterns of neural firing
match the frequency of a sound

 But pitch perception involves more integrated cortical processes

as well
 E.g. pitch memory, pitch comparison
 Absolute pitch – how (some) people can name or reproduce a pitch so
accurately
 Sensory System is Multimodal!
 Human sensation and
perception spans many
modalities and receptive
organs
 They integrate to give rise to
the holistic understanding of
the outside world
 Audiovisual research
dominated in the past (partly
due to practical reasons), but
research in other modalities
is booming Ager, A. L., Borms, D., Deschepper, L., Dhooghe, R., Dijkhuis, J., Roy, J.
S., & Cools, A. (2020). Proprioception: How is it affected by shoulder
pain? A systematic review. Journal of hand therapy, 33(4), 507-516.
See you next time!
Questions welcome