GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY o Rods – visual sensory receptors
found at the back of the retina,
SENSATION responsible for noncolor sensitivity to
• Sensation is the activation of receptors in low levels of the light
the various sense organs. o Cones – visual sensory receptors
o Sensory receptors are specialized found at the back of the retina,
forms of neurons. responsible for color vision and
sharpness of vision
Sensory Thresholds o Blind spot – area in the retina where
the axons of the three layers of retinal
• Just Noticeable Difference (JND or The
cells exit the eye to form the optic
Difference Threshold) – the smallest
nerve, insensitive to light
difference between two stimuli that is
detectable 50% of the time
• Absolute Threshold – the smallest
amount of energy needed for a person to
consciously detect a stimuli 50% of the
time it is present
Subliminal Sensation
• Subliminal stimuli – stimuli that are below
the level of conscious awareness; just
strong enough to activate the sensory
receptors but not strong enough for
people to be consciously aware of them
o Limin – “threshold”
o Sublimin – “below the threshold” Psychological Aspects to Light
o Supraliminal – “above the threshold” • Brightness – determined by the
• Subliminal perception – process by why amplitude of the wave–how high or low
subliminal stimuli act upon the the wave actually is.
unconscious mind, influencing behavior o The higher the wave, the brighter the
EYES light will be. Low waves are dimmer.
Structure of the Eye • Color / Hue – is determined by the length
of the wave
• Cornea – clear membrane that covers o Long wavelengths are found at the
the surface of the eye; protects the eye red end of the visible spectrum
and is the structure that focuses most of whereas shorter wavelengths are
the light coming into the eye found at the blue end
o Radial keratotomy – vision-improving • Saturation – refers to the purity of the
technique that uses this fact by color people see; mixing in black or gray
making small incisions in the cornea would also lessen the saturation
to change the focus in the eye
• Aqueous humor – next visual layer; clear, How the Eyes Work
watery fluid that is continually
• Dark adaptation – the recovery of the
replenished and supplies nourishment to
eye’s sensitivity to visual stimuli in
the eye
darkness after exposure to bright lights
• Pupil – hole through which light from the o Night blindness
visual image enters the interior of the eye
• Light adaptation – the recovery of the
• Iris – round muscle (colored part of the eye’s sensitivity to visual stimuli in light
eye) in which the pupil is located; can after exposure to darkness
change the size of the pupil, letting more
or less light into the eye; helps focus the Color Vision
image
• Trichromatic theory – theory of color
• Lens – another clear structure behind the
vision that proposes three types of
iris, suspended by muscles; finishes the
cones: red, blue and green
focusing process begun by the cornea
o Visual accommodation – the change • Afterimages – images that occur when a
in the thickness of the lens as the eye visual sensation persists for a brief time
focuses on objects that are far away even after the original stimulus is
or close removed
• Vitreous humor – jelly-like fluid that also Color Blindness
nourishes the eye and give it shape
• Retina – final stop for light in the eye that • Monochrome colorblindness – either
contains 3 layers: ganglion cells, bipolar have no cones or have cones that are not
cells and photoreceptors that respond to working at all
various light waves • Red-Green colorblindness – either the
red or the green cones are not working
o Protanopia – lack of functioning red o damage in the auditory pathways and
cones cortical areas of the brain
o Deuteranopia – lack of functioning
green cones Surgery to Help Restore Hearing
o Tritanopia – lack of functioning blue • Cochlear Implant - a microphone
cones implanted just behind the ear picks up
EARS sound from the surrounding environment
Structure of the Ears o Speech processor selects and
arranges the sound picked up by the
• Auditory canal – short tunnel that runs microphone
from the pinna to the eardrum (tympanic o Implant is a transmitter and receiver,
membrane) converting signals into electrical
• Eardrum – thin section of the skin that impulses
tightly covers the opening into the middle o Collected by the electrode array in the
part of the ear, just like a drum skin cochlea and then sent to the brain
covers the opening in a drum
TONGUE
o When sound waves hit the eardrum, it
Taste
vibrates and causes three tiny bones
(hammer, anvil and stirrup) in the • Taste buds – taste receptor cells in
middle ear to vibrate mouth; responsible for sense of taste
• Cochlea – snail-shaped structure of the • Gustation – sensation of a taste
inner ear that is filled with fluid • Five basic tastes:
• Organ of Corti – rests in the basilar o Sweet
membrane; contains receptor cells for o Sour
sense of hearing o Salty
• Auditory nerve – bundle of axons from o Bitter
the hair cells in the inner ear; receives o “Brothy”
neural message from the Organ of Corti
NOSE
Smell
• Olfaction – sense of smell
• Olfactory bulbs – areas of the brain
located just above the sinus cavity and
just below the frontal lobes that receives
information from the olfactory receptor
Sound cells
• Wavelength – interpreted as frequency or
pitch (high, medium, or low)
• Amplitude – interpreted as volume (how
soft or loud a sound is)
• Purity – interpreted as timbre (a richness
in the tone of the sound)
• Hertz (Hz) - cycles or waves per second,
a measurement of frequency SKIN
Somesthetic senses
Type of Hearing Impairments
• Somesthetic senses - the body senses
• Conduction hearing impairment - can consisting of the skin senses, the
result from either: kinesthetic sense, and the vestibular
o damaged eardrum (which would senses
prevent sound waves from being o "Soma" – body
carried into the middle ear properly) o "Esthetic" – feeling
o damage to the bones of the middle
• Skin senses - the sensations of touch,
ear (sounds cannot be conducted
pressure, temperature, and pain
from the eardrum to the cochlea)
o Sensory receptors in the skin
• Nerve hearing impairment – can result o Gate-control theory - pain signals
from either: must pass through a "gate" located in
o damage in the inner ear the spinal cord
Development of Perception
• Depth perception – the ability to perceive
the world in three dimensions
o Studies of depth perception – Visual
cliff experiment
• Kinesthetic sense - sense of the location
of body parts in relation to the ground and
each other
o Proprioceptive receptors
(proprioceptors)
• Vestibular senses - the sensations of
movement, balance, and body position
o Sensory conflict theory an
explanation of motion sickness in
which the information from the eyes
conflicts with the information from the
vestibular senses, resulting in
dizziness, nausea, and other physical
discomforts
PERCEPTION
• Perception is a method by which the
sensations experienced at any given
moment are interpreted and organized in
some meaningful fashion
o Size constancy – tendency to
interpret an object as always being
the same actual size, regardless of its
distance
o Shape constancy – tendency to
interpret the shape of an object as
being constant, even when its shape
changes on the retina
o Brightness constancy – tendency to
perceive the apparent brightness of
an object as the same even when the
light conditions change
Gestalt Principles
• Figure–ground – tendency to perceive
objects, or figures, as existing on a
background
• Reversible figures – visual illusions in
which the figure and ground can be
reversed
• Similarity – tendency to perceive things
that look similar to each other as being
part of the same group
• Proximity – tendency to perceive objects
that are close to each other as part of the
same grouping
• Closure – tendency to complete figures
that are incomplete
• Continuity – tendency to perceive things
as simply as possible with a continuous
pattern rather than with a complex,
broken-up pattern
• Contiguity – tendency to perceive two
things that happen close together in time
as being related
