PSYC 1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Taste, Hearing Aid, Thalamus

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1001
• Professor: Lorena Ruci

Document Summary

Sensation: the way that our bodies, through the senses, receive energy from the environment. We do not need conscious effort to sense things, it is elementary. The brain needs to select information, filter it, interpret it and in so make sense of the world. The essence of perception is construction, constructing information. Necker cube : staring at the cube makes the cube change in orientation. Because there is no change in the sensation, staring at it long enough, makes the brain perceive it differently. When we receive information through the senses, it goes through a process called transduction which is the neuronal signals that are transformed into mental representations of the world. Psychophysics: the study of physical stimuli is translated into a psychological experience. Threshold: minimum amount of energy that humans need to be exposed to for us to perceive that something is happening.