PSYO 1011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Absolute Threshold, Psychophysics, Neural Adaptation

• School: Dalhousie University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYO 1011
• Professor: Jennifer Stamp

Document Summary

Sensation- a physical process; the stimulation of our sense organs by features of the outer world. Involves the transduction of the physical world into neural impulses. Perception- a psychological process; the act of organizing and interpreting sensory experience. Involves binding these sensory impulses into a representation of the world. Sensory adaptation- the process by which our sensitivity diminishes when an object constantly stimulates our senses; notice changes in stimulation, rather than stimulation itself. Transduction- the conversion of physical into neural information. The study of how people psychologically percieve physical stimuli such as light, sound waves and touch. Principles of perception: absolute threshold- the lowest intensity level of a stimulus a person can detect half of the time. Procedure- amounts of a stimulus are presented on different trials and the participant reports if a stimulus was detected: signal detection. Takes into account both stimulus intensity and the decision making processes people use in detecting a stimulus.