PSY 3108 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Threshold Of Pain, Dermis, Mechanoreceptor

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3108
• Professor: Charles Collin

Document Summary

Touch and our other senses: multimodality, transaction, parallel vs. Serial processing: receptive fields, temporal and spatial resolution. Touch: subtopics: the stimuli of touch, anatomy of the skin, types of mechanoreceptors, brain areas processing touch sensations, tactile acuity and vibration sensitivity, haptic object perception. Somatosensory neurones respond to physical changes in skin, mainly involving: pressure (stretch and compression, vibration (movement, temperature (cold or heat, these combine to elicit higher-order sensations such as wetness or smoothness. Vibration: variation in skin pressure across time. Frequency of vibration is measured in hertz (hz) = cycles/second: amplitude of vibration measured in meters (usually micrometers, the basis for the sense of movement across the skin, which is important (e. g) tool use. Pain: excessive intensities of pressure, vibration, and temperature (as well as ph) produce painful sensations, the pain threshold varies according to many factors, pain is in general a very complex and subtle topic.