PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Neural Adaptation, Rarefaction, Taste

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

Explain the different types of sensory energy in the different modalities, and which physical. Week 8 notes characteristics correspond to which psychological characteristics. Vision: sensing light and its reflections off surfaces with the eyes: light arrives in the form of photons which travel in a wave form, amplitude of wave = brightness, wavelength = colour. Hearing: sensing vibration in the air with the ears: sound is a wave (compression and rarefaction of air, amplitude = volume / intensity, frequency = pitch, spectrum = timbre. Chemical: taste and smell, work through chemical compounds binding to specialized receptors. Allows organism to ignore stimuli that remain unchanged and are irrelevant to survival. If a neuron becomes fatigued as a result of sensory adaption, it"s rate of signaling may fall below the spontaneous rate, or minimum detectable level, and your body no longer notices the stimulus. Describe the different ways that neurons can code information: pattern, place and temporal codes.