PSY 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Sensory Neuron, Absolute Threshold, Psychophysics

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 105
• Professor: sarah radtke

Document Summary

Sensation - the act of using our sensory systems to detect environmental stimuli. Transduction - sensors in the body convert physical signals from the environment into neural signals sent to the nervous system. After being transduced, our brains then organize the sensory data into meaningful concepts. Sensory receptor cells - specialized cells that convert a specific form of environmental stimuli into neural impulses. Sensory transduction - the process of converting a specific form of sensory data into a neural impulse that our brain can read. Measure the strength of a stimulus and the observer"s sensitivity to that stimulus. Absolute threshold - the smallest amount of a stimulus that one can detect. Smell - drop of perfume diffused throughout a six-room apartment. Taste - 5 ml of sugar in 9l of water. Touch - an insect"s wing falling on your cheek from a height about a cm. Hearing - the tick of a watch at 6m in a quiet room.