PSYC 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Oval Window, Sensory Neuron, Ganglion Cell

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1000
• Professor: Anneke Olthof

Document Summary

The same sensory stimulus may be perceived differently in different contexts: the middle stimulus is physically identical in both words below, but tends to be perceived as h" on left and as a" on right. The point is that our interpretation of sensory input is not just dependent on the sensory input itself: what you see is not necessarily what you get! Up to and including transduction = sensation: psychophysics, studies relations between physical characteristics of stimuli and sensory capabilities, concerned with two kinds of sensitivity. Asks about the absolute limits of sensitivity. What is the smallest difference in brightness that we can detect: absolute threshold, the lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected correctly 50% of the time. Lower absolute threshold = greater sensitivity: difference threshold, weber"s law, smallest difference between two stimuli that can be detected 50% of the time. Jnd is proportional to the magnitude of the stimulus with which the comparison is being made.