SENSATION

&
PERCEPTION
• Sensation: Process of receiving information from
the environment and converting it into nervous
system activity.
• Transducer: A mechanism that converts energy
from one form to other. Common to all senses.
• Perception: Cognitive process of selecting,
organizing and interpreting stimuli.
• Sensory Threshold: Minimum level or intensity of
a stimulus that will activate our sensory organs.
• Psychophysics: Study of relationship between
physical attribute of stimuli and the psychological
experiences they produce.
• Absolute Threshold: The physical intensity of a
stimulus that one can detect 50% of the time.
• Difference Threshold: Differences in the
attributes of a stimulus that can be detected
50% of the time.
• Just Noticeable Difference: The minimal
change that can be detected in a stimulus
attribute like intensity etc.
 Absolute Threshold Values for
Five Senses
Vision Flame of a candle seen from a distance of 30
miles on a clear dark night.
Hearing Ticking of a watch under quiet conditions
from 20 feet.
Taste One teaspoon of sugar dissolved in two
gallons of water
Smell One drop of perfume in a three room
apartment.
Touch Wing of a bee dropped on your cheek from a
height of one cm.
• Signal Detection Theory: It proposes that
signal detection is decision making: separating
the signal from the background noise.(A signal
is detected against the background noise and
randomly changing neural activity. The
absolute threshold is thus influenced by a
number of factors in addition to acuity of
sense organ.)
• Sensory Adaptation: The process in which our
sensory experience diminishes with continued
exposure to a stimulus. Exception to this use
of adaptation ocours when we move from
light to a dark room. Dark adaptation refers to
the process in which visual receptors become
more sensitive with the time spent in dark.
Like dark adaptation there is also light
adaptation.
 Actual lineup Composition
Perpetrator Perpetrator
Present Absent
Perpetrator Hit False Alarm
present

Perpetrator Miss Correct

Absent Rejection
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