Psychology 5. Sensation and Perception | Minnesota State University Moorhead

University:
Minnesota State University Moorhead
Course:
PSY-113 | General Psychology
Academic year:

2021
Views:

312

Pages:

2
Author:

grosikesf4

SENSATION & PERCEPTION PSYCHOPHYSICSPsychophysics is the study of the quantitative relationship between psychological events and physical events. To be more specific, it analyzes the relationship between sensations and the stimuli that produce them. SENSORY SYSTEMSThe sensory system consists of various parts, including sensory receptors, neural pathways, and other parts of the brain involved in sensory perception. The recognized sensory systems are vision, hearing, somatic sensation (touch), taste, and olfaction (smell). CHEMICAL SENSESChemical senses are a nervous mechanism for the physiological reception of and response to chemical stimulation. Specifically, the central nervous process (as in smelling and tasting) is initiated by excitation of special receptors sensitive to chemical substances in solution — compare to chemoreceptors. PERCEPTIONPerception is the sensory experience of the world. Perception requires recognizing environmental stimuli, as well as the actions in response to those stimuli. Perception does not only create our experience of the world around us, it allows us to act within our environment. BINOCULAR CUES- Binocular cues are visual information taken in by two eyes that enable us a sense of depth perception, or stereopsis. Retinal disparity, also known as binocular parallax, refers to both of our eyes seeing the world from a slightly different angle. MOTION PARALLAXMotion parallax is a monocular depth cue that arises from the relative velocities of objects moving across the retinae of a moving person. Parallax is a change in position. You can understand motion parallax better by imagining yourself as a passenger in a car looking out the side window at your surroundings. VISUAL CONSTANCIESVisual constancy is explained by our ability to perceive that an object remains the same, even when the object is projecting different images onto our retinas. There are different types of visual constancy - shape, color, size, brightness, and location constancy. GESTALT PSYCHOLOGYGestalt Psychology was a psychological movement founded in 1912 Germany. It sought to explain perceptions in terms of gestalts, rather than explaining them by analyzing their constituents. ODOR PERCEPTIONOlfaction is a chemoreception that, through the sensory olfactory system, forms the perception of smell. Olfaction has many purposes, such as the detection of hazards, pheromones, and food. Olfaction only occurs when odorants are bound on sites located atop olfactory receptors, which are in the nasal cavity