Essentials of Psychology,

by Saul Kassin

CHAPTER 3:

Sensation and Perception

2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Sensation and Perception

Measuring the Sensory Experience

Sensation
Perception
Extrasensory Perception
Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Sensation and Perception

Sensation
The processes by which our sense organs receive
information from the environment.

Transduction
The process by which physical energy is converted
into sensory neural impulses.

Perception
The processes by which people select, organize,
and interpret sensations.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Processes of Sensation & Perception

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Measuring Sensory Experience

Research and Theory
Psychophysics
The study of the relationship between
physical stimulation and subjective
sensations.

Signal-Detection Theory
The theory that detecting a stimulus is
jointly determined by the signal and the
subjects response criterion.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Measuring Sensory Experience

Thresholds
Absolute Threshold
The smallest amount of stimulation that can
be detected.

Just Noticeable Difference (JND)

The smallest amount of change in a stimulus
that can be detected.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Measuring Sensory Experience

Absolute Sensory Thresholds
Vision: A single candle flame from 30 miles on a
dark, clear night
Hearing: The tick of a watch from 20 feet in total
quiet
Smell: 1 drop of perfume in a 6-room apartment
Taste: 1 teaspoon sugar in 2 gallons of water
Touch: The wing of a bee on your cheek, dropped
from 1 cm

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Sensation

Vision
Hearing
Other Senses
Keeping the Signals Straight
Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
The Electromagnetic Spectrum

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
Structures of the Human Eye

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
Structures of the Human Eye
Cornea
Clear outer membrane that bends light to
focus it in the eye.

Pupil
The hole in the iris through which light
passes.

Lens
The structure that focuses light on the retina.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
The Retina
The rear
of the eye
where
rods and
cones
convert
light into
neural
impulses.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
Visual Pathways
Optic Nerve
Pathway that
carries visual
information
from the eyeball
to the brain.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
Hubel & Wiesels Experiment

Hubel and Wiesels experiment measured the activity of cells in

a cats visual cortex.
Cells in the visual cortex that respond only to certain types of
visual information, for example, a diagonal line moving up and
down, are called feature detectors.
Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
Trichromatic Theory
T. Young (1802) & H.
von Helmholtz (1852)
both proposed that the
eye detects three
primary colors: red,
blue, & green.
All other colors can be
derived by combining
these three.
Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
The Color Wheel
Spectral colors vary
from violet-blue to red
470 to 700 nanometer
wavelength
Opponent colors are
directly across from each
other on the wheel.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
Test of Color Deficiency

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Vision
Opponent-Process Theory
Color vision is derived from three pairs of
opposing receptors. The opponent colors are
blue and yellow, red and green, and black and
white.
This theory explains afterimages (a visual
sensation that persists after prolonged exposure
to and removal of a stimulus) and color
deficiency.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Hearing
The Human Ear

Audition
The
sense of
hearing

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Hearing
Auditory Localization
The ability to judge
from which direction a
sound is coming
Sounds from different
directions are not identical
as they arrive at left and
right ears.
The brain calculates a
sounds location by using
differences in timing and
intensity.
Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Hearing
Common Sounds and the Noise They Produce

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Hearing
Hearing Disabilities
Conduction Hearing Loss
Caused by damage to the eardrum or bones
in the middle ear.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Caused by damage to the structures of the
inner ear.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Other Senses
Olfactory System
Structures
responsible
for the
sense of
smell

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Other Senses
Taste

Taste buds
Nets of taste-receptor cells
This is a photograph of the tongues
surface (top), magnified 75 times.
10,000 taste buds line the tongue
and mouth.
Children have more taste buds than
adults do.
There are four primary tastes:
sweet, salty, sour, and bitter.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Other Senses
Temperature

The Thermal Grill When

a person grasps two braided
water pipes one with cold
water running through it and
one with warm water the
sensation is burning hot
and painful.
There are two separate
pathways for warmth and
cold.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Other Senses
Pain
Gate-control Theory
Theory that the spinal cord contains a
neurological gate that blocks pain signals
from the brain when flooded by competing
signals.

Psychological control
Mind over sensation, distraction

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Other Senses
Coordination
Kinesthetic System
Structures distributed throughout body that
sense position and movement of body parts.

Vestibular System
The inner ear and brain structures that
afford a sense of equilibrium.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Keeping the Signals Straight

Synesthesia
Rare condition in which stimulation in one sensory
modality triggers sensations in another sensory
modality.

Each sensory system is designed to operate

separately from the others.
Sensory Adaptation
A decline in sensitivity to a stimulus as a result of
constant exposure.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Perception

Perceptual Organization
Perceptual Constancies
Depth and Dimension
Perceptual Set
The World of Illusions

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Perceptual Organization
Reversible Figures
Drawings that one can
perceive in different
ways by reversing
figure and ground.

Gestalt Psychology
School of thought
rooted in the idea that
the whole is different
from the sum of its
parts.
Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Perceptual Organization
Gestalt Laws of Grouping
Proximity
Seeing 3 pair of lines in A

Similarity
Seeing columns of orange
and red dots in B

Continuity
Seeing lines that connect 1
to 2 and 3 to 4 in C

Closure
Seeing a horse in D
Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Perceptual Organization
Identifying Objects
Geons (geometric
icons) are simple 3D
component shapes.
A limited number
are stored in
memory.
Geons are combined
to identify essential
contours of objects.
Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Perceptual Constancies
Size Constancy
The tendency to view an object as constant in
size despite changes in the size of the retinal
image.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Depth and Dimension

Depth Perception
The use of visual cues to estimate depth and
distance.

Convergence
A binocular cue involving the turning inward of
the eyes as an object gets closer.

Binocular Disparity
A binocular cue whereby the closer an object is, the
more different the image is in each retina.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Depth and Dimension

Monocular Depth Cues
Distance cues that enable the perception of depth with one
eye.

Relative Image Size

Texture Gradient
Linear Perspective
Interposition
Atmospheric Perspective
Relative Elevation
Familiarity

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Depth and Dimension

The Visual Cliff

Devised by Eleanor Gibson and

Richard Walk to test depth
perception in infants and
animals.
Provides visual illusion of a
cliff.
Caregiver stands across the
gap.
Babies are not afraid until
about the age that they can
crawl.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Perceptual Set

What is seen in the center figures depends on the order in which one
looks at the figures:
If scanned from the left, a mans face is seen.
If scanned from the right, a womans figure is seen.
This demonstrates the effects of ones perceptual set.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Perceptual Set
Context Effects
The same physical
stimulus can be
interpreted differently
depending on perceptual
set, e.g., context effects.
When is the middle
character the letter B
and when is it the
number 13?

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

The World of Illusions

The Mller-Lyer Illusion
Illusion in which
the perceived
length of a line is
altered by the
position of other
lines that enclose it

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

Extrasensory Perception

The Case for ESP

The Case against ESP
The Continuing Controversy

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

The Case for ESP

Extrasensory Perception (ESP)
The ability to perceive something without
ordinary sensory information.
This has not been scientifically demonstrated.

Parapsychologists distinguish between three

types of ESP:
Telepathy Mind-to-mind communication
Clairvoyance Perception of remote events
Precognition Ability to see future events

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

The Case against ESP

ESP Cards

J. B. Rhine conducted many experiments on ESP

using stimuli such as these.
Rhine believed that his evidence supported the
existence of ESP, but his findings were flawed..
Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing

The Continuing Controversy

The ganzfield procedure
Researchers disagree about the reliability of
studies done to replicate the ganzfield test.
Visit www.randi.org/ for information about
the James Randi Educational Foundations
million-dollar paranormal challenge.

Kassin, Essentials of Psychology - 2004 Prentice Hall Publishing