PSYC 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Cornea, Gestalt Psychology, Absolute Threshold
Document Summary
Detecting stimuli from the body or environment: perception. Organizing sensations into meaningful patterns: stimulus. Form of energy that can affect sense organs. Study the relationship between stimuli and our psychological response to them: sensory receptors. Detect stimuli and concert energy into neural impulses. Receptors are designed to serve very specific functions. There is a minimum amount of any given sensation that has to be present for us to notice it. This is the minimum amount of a stimulus that is necessary for us to notice it 50% of the time: sensory adaption. If a stimulus is unchanging, we become desensitized to it. Keeps us focused on changes, not constants. Just noticeable different: smallest different in amount of stimulation that a specific sense can detect, weber"s law. The size of the jnd is a constant proportion of initial stimulus. Long wavelengths: ac circuits, radio waves, infrared rays. Short wavelengths: visible light, x-rays, uv & gamma rays.
