Module 1.

6
Sensation
Processing
Sensation &
Perception
• Sensation is the
process by which our
sensory receptors and
nervous system receive
and represent stimulus
energies from our
environment. Perception
is the process of
organizing and
interpreting sensory
information, enabling us
to recognize meaningful
objects and events.
Processing Our
World
•Under normal conditions, sensation and perception blend
into one continuous process, working together to help you
decipher the world around you.

• Bottom-up processing: analysis that begins with the

sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s
integration of sensory information (sensation first)
• Top-down processing: information processing guided
by higher-level mental processes , as when we
construct perceptions drawing on our experiences and
expectations (experience first)

•While walking through an art museum, you come to the

abstract art section. If you used bottom-up processing, you
would stare at the piece and try to figure out what the artist
was trying to create. If you used top-down processing, you
would read the title of the work and look for elements of
that in the painting.
Just a rose, or something more
romantic?

And why is this painting called “The Forest Has

Eyes”?
Transduction

• All of our senses receive sensory

stimulation, transform that information
into neural impulses, and deliver
information to the brain. The process of
converting one form of energy to another
Physica Psychologic
(or, in this case, converting sensory l World al World
stimulation into neural signals) is called
transduction. Transduction of all senses
involves three steps: Receiving sensory Light Brightness
stimulation, transforming that stimulation
into neural impulses, and finally
delivering those neural impulses to the
Sound Volume
brain.
Pressur
• The field of psychophysics Weight
studies the relationships between the e
physical characteristics of stimuli and our
psychological experience of them. Sugar Sweet
Signal Detection
Theory
• Detection of a stimulus not only
relies on the strength of the stimulus, but also
our psychological state - our experience,
expectations, motivation, alertness, etc. Signal
detection theory predicts how and when we
detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid
background stimulation, thus assuming there is
no single absolute threshold and that detection
depends on the person.

• Remember doing hearing tests as a

kid? You would raise your hand if you heard a
sound and stay still if you didn’t. If during the
test you got distracted, or you were so focused
you thought you heard something that wasn’t
there, it could skew the results of the test.
Khan Academy Review
Subliminal
Perception

•Stimuli you cannot consciously

detect 50% of the time are
subliminal, or below your absolute
threshold.
•Can we be controlled by subliminal
messages? Some advertisers sneak
subliminal messages into their
marketing in hopes of increasing
sales.
Seeing is
• Priming is a phenomenon in
which exposure to one stimulus
influences how a person responds to a

Believing subsequent, related stimulus. Through

experience, we come to expect certain
results. Those expectations may give
us a perceptual set - a mental
predisposition to perceive one thing
and not another.
Thresholds
• In order for a neuron to fire, the
threshold to trigger an impulse must be
reached. This principle continues with
sensation. The absolute threshold is the
minimum amount of stimulus energy
needed to detect a particular stimulus
50% of the time. The concept of absolute
thresholds was studied by Gustav
Fechner.
Difference Threshold
Absolute thresholds deal with detection
of one stimulus, while difference thresholds
(a.k.a. just noticeable difference) note the
minimum difference between two stimuli
required for detection 50% of the time.
Ernest Weber described this
phenomenon with a new principle - Weber’s
law. Weber’s law states that, to be perceived
as different, two stimuli must differ by a
constant percentage rather than a
constant amount.
Consider playing with light dimmers.
How much do you need to move the dimmer
switch to see something as darker or lighter
than before?
Sensory
Adaptation
• Earlier, we stated that if our brain was giving
equal attention to all the information it received, we’d go
crazy. This is one of the reasons our brain is primed to
detect change and ignore constants. Sensory adaptation is
diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant
stimulation or exposure.
• When you know the water is cold, you are
hesitant to jump in, but all the adults say the same thing -
“you’ll get used to it after a few minutes”. You jump in, are
frozen for a moment, and then start to acclimate to the
water.
• Up until now, you have ignored much of your
senses because they’ve been exposed to constants, but
now that I’m bringing it to your attention (the smell of the
room or your perfume, the feeling of the clothes on your
skin), you notice it again.
Light Energy
•Light travels in waves, and the shape of
those waves influences what we see.
Light’s wavelength (distance from the
peak of one wave to the next)
determines the hue (color). The wave’s
amplitude (height) determines the
intensity (the amount of energy the
wave contains) or brightness. The purity
of the wave determines how vivid the
color appears.
The Eye Light enters the cornea (the eye’s
clear, protective layer) and then the
pupil (adjustable opening of the eye
allowing light to pass through) whose
size is determined by the iris (colored
ring of muscle tissue). Light is then
focused by the lens (transparent
structure which changes shape to
focus images) on the retina (the light
sensitive inner surface of the eye with
layers of neurons to convert light into
neural impulses). The process of
focusing these images is called
accommodation. These neural
impulses are carried to the brain via
the optic nerve.
Information Processing in
the Eye
• Rods: retinal receptors that detect black,
white, and gray, are sensitive to movement
and are necessary for peripheral vision
• Cones: retinal receptors concentrated near
the center of the retina responsible for
daylight/color vision
• Blind Spot: the point at which the optic nerve
exits the eye so there is an absence of
receptor cells
• Fovea: the central focal point in the retina,
around which the eye’s cones cluster →
where visual acuity is greatest
• Ganglion cells: final output neurons of the
retina which collects the electrical messages
concerning the visual signal from the two
layers of nerve cells preceding it
• Bipolar cells: transport information from rods
and cones to ganglion cells
Color Processing
This apple is obviously red, right? Of course! But
actually, the apple is everything but red, because it
rejects the wavelengths we process as red and
absorbs the rest. Light waves are colorless but our
brain perceives them in color.
Color vision is largely a mystery, but we have
some theories to explain how we see a world in color.
● Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory states that
the retina contains three different types of color
receptors for three basic colors - red, green, and
blue - which when stimulated can come together
to form every color.
○ Why not yellow? Because when both red and green
receptors are stimulated, we see yellow.
Opponent Process Theory
But why do people blind to red and green
often still see yellow? And why does yellow appear
to be a pure color and not a mixture of red and
green, the way purple is of red and blue?
Opponent-process theory states that color
vision depends on three sets of opposing retinal
processes—red-green, blue-yellow, and white-
black. As impulses travel to the visual cortex, some
neurons in both the retina and the thalamus are
turned “on” by red but turned “off” by green. If
exposed to one color for an extended period, the
X opposite will appear in the afterimage.

Stare at the red circle for 30 seconds. Look at

nothing else. After the 30 seconds are up, move
your eyes to the X. You should see an afterimage
of a red background with a green spot.
23
Feature Detection

•Feature detectors are nerve cells

in the visual cortex respond to
specific features, such as edges,
angles, and movement. For
humans, we have specialized
feature detectors for faces.
•Damage to these feature
detectors or the area of the
temporal lobe responsible for
facial recognition could lead to
prosopagnosia (also known as
face blindness or facial agnosia)-
a neurological disorder
characterized by the inability to
recognize faces.
 •Parallel processing refers to our ability to
Parallel analyze many aspects of a problem (or in this
case, a sensation) simultaneously. When we see
Processing something, we take in the object’s color, shape,
size, movement, and distance for us all at once.
 •Audition is our sense of hearing. Like light, sound travels in

Sound waves. Sound waves are composed of compression and

rarefaction of air molecules. The height of the wave, or
amplitude, determines the volume of the sound, measured

Waves in decibels. The frequency (number of wavelengths that

pass a point in a given time) determines the pitch (highness
or lowness of tone).
 The Ear

• Sound waves are funneled into the

auditory canal by the pinna (exterior part of ear).
Once in the ear canal, sound waves vibrate the
eardrum (tight membrane preceding the middle
ear), then the hammer/malleus, anvil/incus, and
stirrup/stapes (also known as the ossicles), finally
vibrating the oval window of the cochlea (the
coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube of the inner ear
responsible for transduction of sound). The
cochlea is lined with a basilar membrane (a layer
of hair cells which convert the sound waves into
neural impulses). Neural impulses are carried to
the brain via the auditory nerve.
•Seated above the cochlea but not involved in
auditory processing are the semicircular canals -
fluid-filled tubes used by the vestibular sense to
sense body position.
Hearing Loss
•There are two types of hearing loss or
deafness:
• Sensorineural hearing loss (a.k.a. Nerve
deafness): inability to hear due to
damage to the cochlea’s receptor cells or
to the auditory nerves
• Can be caused by repeated/prolonged
exposure to loud sounds
• Can be helped by a cochlear implant
• Conduction hearing loss: inability to hear
due to damage to mechanical elements
of the ear (parts other than the cochlea)
• Can be helped by a hearing aid
Losing
Audition
•How is our sense of hearing
impacted by high frequency
sounds?
•Because high frequency sounds create
more movement among hair cells, they
overwork the cells and can cause them
to decay faster than they would
normally.
•How does hearing change as we
age?
•Hearing has a critical period, meaning
that it will decline as we age. Hearing
can be protected by avoid continuous
loud and/or high-pitched sounds, and
can be preserved by the use of hearing
aids or cochlear implants.
Theories of Hearing
Place theory states that the Frequency theory states that
pitch of a sound we hear is due the entirety of the basilar
to activation of specific hair cells membrane vibrates in response
on the basilar membrane (like a to sound, and the speed of the
piano). vibration is how we perceive
pitch (like a drum).
Sound Localization
Because we have
two ears, sounds that
reach one ear faster
than the other ear
cause us to localize the
sound, or determine
the direction of the
sound’s source.
Touch
• Touch, our tactile sense, is vital
to our development and survival.
Contact comfort helps us establish
bonds with caregivers, and premature
babies have a better chance of survival
if they are held. The tactile sensations
include pain, pressure, touch and
temperature, and are processed by our
parietal lobe.
Gate-Control Theory of
Pain
•Pain tells the body that something has
gone wrong, usually resulting from damage
to the skin and other tissues. Pain begins at
sensory neurons known as nociceptors.
•Melzak and Wall (1965, 1983) proposed
that our spinal cord contains neurological
“gates” that either block pain or allow it to
be sensed. Gate-control theory states that
the spinal cord acts as a buffer between
pain and the brain, deciding which signals
will pass through; pain is a function of the
balance between the information traveling
into the spinal cord through large nerve
fibers and information traveling into the
spinal cord through small nerve fibers.
Phantom Limbs
& Endorphins
•Pain is not merely a physical
phenomenon of injured nerves sending
impulses to a definable brain or spinal
cord area. The brain can also create pain,
as it does in phantom limb sensations
after a limb amputation. Without normal
sensory input, the brain may misinterpret
and amplify spontaneous but irrelevant
central nervous system activity. As the
dreamer may see with eyes closed, so 7
in 10 such people feel pain or movement
in nonexistent limbs.
•As we learned last unit, endorphins
serve as natural painkillers, thus
preventing pain signals from going to the
brain.
Smell
• Olfaction, or our sense of smell, is also a
chemical sense and works closely with taste through
a process called sensory interaction (when one
sense influences another). This is why if you plug
your nose or have a bad sinus infection and can’t
smell, you also lose your sense of taste.
•Odorants enter the nasal cavity to stimulate 5
million receptors in the olfactory bulb to sense
smell, and then it bypasses the thalamus and goes
straight to the temporal lobe to be processed.
Scientists suspect this is an evolutionary trait, as
smell is our first indication that food has spoiled and
will likely make us ill if consumed. This could also
explain why smell is closely connected to memory;
if something made us ill in the past, its smell will be
a reminder not to eat it again (taste aversion).
Taste
•Gustation, or our sense of taste, is a chemical sense.
There are six identified taste sensations:
• Sweet - helps us identify sugary foods for energy
• Sour - helps us identify foods that have gone bad
or could make us sick
• Salty - sodium is essential for physiological
functioning
• Bitter - helps us identify poison or foods that
could make us sick
• Umami (savory) - helps us identify foods high in
protein which help grow/repair tissue
• Oleogustus - carbs/fats for energy, insulation, &
cell growth
• The small bumps on the surface of the
tongue are called papillae. They serve as our taste
receptors.
Sensory
Interaction
•Sensory interaction refers to the
ability of one sense to influence or
interact with another. Two senses
that commonly interact with each
other are taste and smell. So, the
taste of strawberry interacts with its
smell and its texture on the tongue
to produce flavor.
Vestibular vs. Kinetic Senses
The vestibular sense The sense of our individual
monitors the head and body body parts’ position and
position, as well as, our sense of movement is called kinesthetic
balance. sense.
● Receptors in the semicircular ● Receptors in the muscle
canals and vestibular sacs of tissues and joints
the ear
● Works with cerebellum
Embodied
Cognition
•Sensation and perception have to
work together to give us a complete
understanding of our surroundings,
thus each side works in a
continuous loop where we begin to
think within the body. This is known
as embodied cognition - the
influence of bodily sensations,
gestures, and other states on
cognitive preferences and
judgments.
•Consider the phenomenon of
synesthesia, where sensory
stimulation triggers more than one
sense. Have you seen the TikToks of
people who see sounds, taste
numbers, or hear colors?
Sensory Source Receptors
System Key Brain Areas

Vision Light waves striking the Rods and cones in the retina Occipital lobes
eye

Hearing Sound waves striking Cochlear hair cells (cilia) in the inner ear Temporal lobes
the outer ear

Touch Pressure, warmth, cold, Receptors (including pain sensitive Somatosensory cortex
harmful chemicals nociceptors), mostly in the skin, which (Parietal Lobe)
detect pressure, warmth, cold, and pain

Taste Chemical molecules in Basic taste receptors for sweet, sour, salty, Frontal temporal lobe
the mouth bitter, and umami border

Smell Chemical molecules Millions of receptors at top of nasal cavities Olfactory bulb &
breathed in through the Temporal Lobe
nose

Body position Any change in position Kinesthetic sensors in joints, tendons, and Cerebellum & Parietal
— of a body part, muscles Lobe
kinesthesia interacting with vision

Body Movement of fluids in Hair-like receptors in the ears’ semicircular Cerebellum

movement— the inner ear caused by canals and vestibular sacs
vestibular head/body movement
sense
Miscellaneous
Franz Gall &
Phrenology
•In the early 1800s, German
physician Franz Gall proposed that
phrenology, or the study of bumps
on the skull, could reveal a person’s
underlying brain size and provide
insight into their character and
abilities. Though proved false, it did
lead to focusing on the localization
of function, or that certain parts of
the brain have specific
functions/roles.
These are a few of CB’s favorite things…
● Parts of the neuron & function
● Parts of the brain & function
● Types of Neurotransmitters
● Brain Scans
● Neural transmission & reuptake
● Stages of Sleep
● Sleep Disorders
● Sensory adaptation
● Theories of Color Vision & Hearing
● Vestibular vs Kinesthetic Sense
● Transduction of sight and sound
Nightmare vs. Night Terror
● An emotional dream - able to ● Affects the body very
remember it strongly: the heart starts
● Occur during REM-sleep - pounding, breathing rate
later in the night. increases and the blood
● Body is paralyzed - no pressure arises.
movement. ● Unable to remember the
event.
● Able to move during the
episode
● Occur in the first 3 hours of
sleep
Perfect and Imperfect Vision
If you have perfect vision,
you will have a perfectly spherical
eyeball where all images fall
perfectly on the retina.
Nearsighted/myopic people (those
who see things clearly up close,
but struggle with things farther
away) will have a longer eyeball
while farsighted/hyperopic people
(those who can clearly see things
from far away but struggle with
things up close) will have a taller
eyeball.
Color Blindness
•About 1 person in 50 is “colorblind.” That
person is usually male, because the defect is
genetically sex linked. Most people with
color-deficient vision are not actually blind to
all colors. They simply lack functioning red-
or green-sensitive cones, or sometimes both.
Their vision—perhaps unknown to them,
because their lifelong vision seems normal—
is monochromatic (one-color) or dichromatic
(two-color) instead of trichromatic, making it
impossible to distinguish the red and green.
Dogs, too, lack receptors for the
wavelengths of red, giving them only limited,
dichromatic color vision.
Illusions
A visual illusion involves an apparently inexplicable
discrepancy between the appearance of a visual
stimulus and its physical reality.

Common illusions:
● Müller-Lyer: illusion of line length that is distorted
by inward-turning or outward-turning corners on the
ends of the lines, causing lines of equal length to
appear to be different.
● Ames Room: Due to the shape of the room-
trapezoid, the person standing to the right side of
the room appears much larger.
● Moon Illusion: moon always appears larger on the
horizon than it does overhead
● Ponzo Illusion: an optical illusion in which two
identical figures are made to appear of different
sizes because of the effect of perspective
 Museum of Illusion

FCSAPP Developm
ent Adventure
Volley Principle
When high frequency sounds are
experienced too frequently for a
single neuron to adequately process
and fire for each sound event, the
organ of Corti combines the multiple
stimuli into a "volley" in order to
process the sounds. The volley
principle states that groups of
neurons of the auditory system
respond to a sound by firing action
potentials slightly out of phase with
one another so that when combined,
a greater frequency of sound can be
encoded and sent to the brain to be
analyzed.
 •AP Psychology. AP Psychology –
AP Students | College Board.
(n.d.).
https://apstudents.collegeboard.o
rg/courses/ap-psychology
•Myers, David G. and Nathan
DeWall. Exploring Psychology.
Citation 11th edition. 2019. New York:
Worth.
s •Myers, David G. and Nathan
DeWall. Psychology. 12th edition.
2018. New York: Worth.
•Weiten, Wayne. Psychology:
Themes and Variations. 10th
edition. 2017. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.