PSYC 280 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Parietal Lobe, Sensory Cortex, Middle Ear
4 Apr 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Chapter 8: general principles of sensory processing, touch and pain. Sensory receptor organs: an organ specialized to receive particular stimuli: ex: eye or an ear. Sensory receptor organs detect and respond to some events but not others. Stimulus: a physical event that triggers a sensory response: ex: sound waves, light, or food. Information from sensory receptor organs enters the brain and travels along axons through action potentials. Infrared radiation, electrical fields, magnetic fields are all types of stimuli sensed. Receptor organs reflect strategies for success in particular worlds. Different kinds of energy like light or sound, need different receptor organs to convert them into neural activity. Sensory systems of particular animals have restricted ranges of responsiveness. Humans do not hear sounds with frequencies exceeding 20,000 cycles per second: ultrasonic range. Some animals can detect stimuli that humans cannot. Johannes muller proposed the doctrine of specific nerve energies.
