SP304 Lecture 2:

Sensation
Week 7
 By the end of todays Lecture
you will understand
What is sensation?
How does it differ from perception?
Why do psychologists study sensation?
The 5 senses:

Vision (sight)
Audition (sound)
Gustation (taste)
Olfaction (smell)
Somatosenses (touch + others)
 What is sensation?
Our thoughts and feelings do not
exist in a vacuum

Our senses are the means by which

we experience the world. Everything
we learn is detected by sense
organs and transmitted to our brains
by sensory nerves.

Without sensory input, a human

brain would be utterly useless.
 The origins of knowledge

Where does human knowledge come from?

The passive perceiver our senses faithfully

receive and record information from the world
around John Lock (17th century English
philosopher).

The Active Perceiver - the perceiver categorises

and interprets the incoming sensory information
we sense what we interpret it to be not
necessarily what is really out there - Immanuel
Kant (17th Century German philosopher)
For example
 Sensation and perception
Sensation is the detection of simple Perception is built from the mind and
properties of stimuli such as is a psychological experience
brightness, colour, warmth and
sweetness
 Sensation and Perception
Sensation involve innate Perception depends on
prewired physiological learning and
mechanisms
categorisation
 Sensation
In this lecture we will talk about how we detect
stimuli from the outside world (sensation) not
our psychological interpretation of it
(perception)

We experience what our senses tell us

But how closely do our experiences correspond

to what is really out there?

For example, at what point do we sense

something?

Psychophysics - Gustav Fechner

 Psychophysics
Sensory thresholds
Absolute threshold the smallest quantity of stimulus that an
individual can detect

Just noticeable difference the smallest difference that an organism

can reliably detect between two stimuli
 Psychophysics
Sensory thresholds
Weber (1795-1878) investigated the ability of humans to discriminate
between various stimuli measured just noticeable differences.

Weber fractions
Can you tell the difference?
 Transduction
Transduction is the process by which the
sense organs convert energy from
environmental events into neural activity.
 What is sensation?
The 5 senses:

Vision (sight)
Audition (sound)
Gustation (taste)
Olfaction (smell)
Somatosenses (touch + others)
Vision
 How do we see?
Light is a type of energy. It is a form
of electromagnetic radiation and is
expressed as a wavelength

Light moves in a straight line,

creating shadows when the path of
light is blocked.

The Sun is a natural source for

visible light waves and our eyes see
the reflection of this sunlight off the
objects around us.
 How do we see?
Rods (photoreceptor cells) in our
eyes are receivers for these tiny
visible light waves.

When light waves hit the eye rods

send messages via
neurotransmitters to the brain

The brain interprets the image

 How do we see colour?
Cones in our eyes are
receivers for these tiny visible
light waves.

The colour of an object that

we see is the colour of light
reflected. All other colours are
absorbed.
 How do we see colour?
Sunlight consists
of the entire
electromagnetic
spectrum.

We only see a
small proportion of
light wave lengths
We cant see all light wave
lengths
Vision
 How do we see colour?
Visible light waves are the only electromagnetic
waves we can see.
We see these waves as the colours of the
rainbow. Each colour has a different
wavelength.
Red has the longest wavelength and violet has
the shortest wavelength.
When all the waves are seen together, they
make white light.
So lets look at the eye
How does the eye work?

Rods black and

white
Cones - Colour
 Vision
Retina performs sensory functions of the
eye

Embedded with 130 million

photoreceptors

Specialised neurons that transduce light

into neural activity

Information transmitted to brain via optic

nerve
 How do we see?
Two types of light sensitive cells photoreceptor:
Rods (function in dim light)
Cones (function in bright light, responsible for colour vision)

Ganglion cells are where signals from rods and cones are integrated. An
overstimulation of ganglion cells can result in a negative after-image
 Eye Movement
Eyes are never completely at
rest

Make small jerky involuntary

movements essential for seeing

Purposeful movements

= saccadic movements
 The evolution of the eye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swGFMEqZKSU&feature=related
 Vision and the brain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbVdlIc5DPE
What happens when cones do not
work?
Colour-blindness
 The blind spot

The eye sees only what the mind

is prepared to comprehend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2uErlPBwdo
Brain Break!
How do we hear?
 How do we hear?
When something makes a noise, it
sends vibrations, or sound waves,
through the air.

The human eardrum is a stretched

membrane, like the skin of a drum.
When the sound waves hit your
eardrum, it vibrates and the brain
interprets these vibrations as sound.
How we hear things
Circles represent waves
 How do we hear?
After the vibrations hit your eardrum,
a chain reaction is set off.

Your eardrum, which is smaller and

thinner than the nail on your little
finger, sends the vibrations to the
three smallest bones in your body.

First the hammer, then the anvil, and

finally, the stirrup. The stirrup passes
those vibrations along a coiled tub in
the inner ear called the cochlea.
 How do we hear?
Inside the cochlea there are
thousands of hair-like nerve
endings, cilia. When the
Cochlea vibrates, the cilia
move. Your brain is sent these
messages (translated from
vibrations by the cilia) through
the auditory nerve.

Your brain then translates all

that and tells you what you are
hearing.
 How do we hear?
Frequency (high or low sounds)

Sound waves that are short hit our

ear in a rapid succession (high
frequency high sound)

Sound waves that are long hit our

ear in a slower succession (low
frequency low sound)
 The Doppler effect
The change in frequency of a wave for an observer moving relative
to its source
When the source of the waves is moving toward the observer, each
successive wave crest is emitted from a position closer to the
observer than the previous wave. Therefore each wave takes
slightly less time to reach the observer than the previous wave.
The time between the arrival of successive wave crests at the
observer is reduced, causing an increase in the frequency
 How do we hear?
Loudness (amplitude)

The bigger the wave, the

louder the sound

Decibel (scale of
loudness)
 How do we hear?
Sounds differ in:

Loudness (intensity of stimulation

of hair cells)
Pitch (which part of membrane
vibrates)

Can use relative loudness and

arrival time at each ear to locate
source of sound

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx
cbppCX6Rk
Brain break!!
How do we taste?
 Taste
Simplest sense

Can distinguish five properties

bumps on the tongue (papillae) contain

up to 2000 taste buds

Taste buds contain receptor cells

Transmit information to the brain via

cranial nerves

Cranial nerves medulla thalamus -

Cortex
Olfaction
 How do we smell
Odour receptor neurons pick up order
molecules in the air

Everything you smell, therefore, is giving

off molecules -- whether it is bread in the
bakery, onions, perfume, a piece of fruit
or whatever.

Those molecules are generally light,

volatile (easy to evaporate) chemicals
that float through the air into your nose.

A piece of steel has no smell because

nothing evaporates from it -- steel is a
non-volatile solid
 How do we smell
At the top of your nasal passages behind
your nose, there is a patch of special
neurons about the size of a postage
stamp.

These neurons are unique in that they are

out in the open where they can come into
contact with the air. They have hair-like
projections called cilia that increase their
surface area.

An odour molecule binds to these cilia to

trigger the neuron and cause you to
perceive a smell (10,000 odours)
 How do we smell?
Receptor cells lie in mucosa (patch of
mucous membrane on roof of nasal
sinuses)
Receptor cells have cillia that are
embedded
in mucosa
Axons pass through small holes in the
bone
and form synapses with neurons in the
olfactory bulbs located at base of brain
Olfactory bulbs analyse information
Evidence that cortex also involved
Smells can have impact on memory,
emotion, arousal (e.g. pheromones)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFJ-
FeHxd0U&feature=related
Somatosenses
Sensation
 The skin senses
Receptors in skin detect:

1. Pressure
2. Pain
3. Hot
4. Cold
 Internal senses
The sense of our body is governed by 3
things
1. Vision
2. Balance organs
3. Proprioception

These work together and often, when one

fails, the others can compensate.
 The internal senses
Proprioception

Sense of body position and

movement (receptors in
joints and skeletal muscles)

Mechanoreceptors send info to

CNS via spinal cord
 Proprioception
This sense gives you the ability to tell where your body
parts are, relative to other body parts and knowing where
you are in space

This sense is used all the time in little ways, such as

when you scratch an itch on your foot, but never once
look at your foot to see where your hand is relative to
your foot.
 Proprioception
Conscious proprioception: we actively
think about complex motor movement

Unconscious proprioception: governs

things like our posture, sitting, standing
and simple gait
 Proprioception
Close your eyes and touch your nose with
your right hand
 Why does this happen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8blP3DRyuM
 Vestibular senses
Sense of balance depends on vestibular apparatus
in inner ear

Allows you to stay upright!

Semi-circular canals contain hair cells which

detect movement and changes in position of
your head
Vestibular sacs contain crystals in gelatinous
substance attached to receptive hair cells
Tilting head activates cells on wall or floor of
sacs
Information transmitted via vestibular nerve
 Synaesthesia
A union of sensations, e.g.
Experience sounds as colours (Coloured-Hearing or
Chromaesthesia)
Taste as shapes (tactile gustation)
Multiple-sensory synaesthesia (e.g. numbers/dates as
colours)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqQIL4nuB-g
Combining senses
 Relevance to psychology
Psychologists are interested in

Cognition (how we think)

Behaviour (how we act)
Perception (how we interpret information)
All depend on our senses

Perception differs from sensation

 Perception versus sensation
Remember
Sensation:
..the detection of simple properties of
stimuli, such as brightness, colour, warmth
and sweetness
Perception:
the detection of objects (both animate
and inanimate), their locations, their
movements and their backgrounds p148.
 Take home message
Investigating sensation involves probing the mysteries of
the brain

Essential for understanding how we interpret and

respond to our environments

Sensation essential for survival and for all aspects of

human functioning