PSYC 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Subliminal Stimuli, Gustav Fechner, Absolute Threshold

• School: Binghamton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 111
• Professor: Lanora Duell

Document Summary

Sensation and perception: parts of one continuous process. sensation: process by which our sensory receptors & nervous system receive & represent stimulus energies from our environment. Bottom-up processing: a(cid:374)al(cid:455)sis that (cid:271)egi(cid:374)s (cid:449)ith se(cid:374)sor(cid:455) re(cid:272)eptors & (cid:449)orks up to the (cid:271)rai(cid:374)"s integration of sensory information. perception: process of organizing & interpreting sensory information enabling us to recognize meaningful objects & events. Top-down processing: information processing guided by our experience & expectations. Transduction: process of converting one form of energy into another that our brain can use. Psychophysics: study of how what we detect affects our psychological experiences. Receive sensory stimulation; transform that stimulation into neural impulses; deliver neural information to our brain. In studying our awareness of faint stimuli, gustav fechner identified an absolute threshold as minimum stimulation needed to detect particular stimulus 50% of the time. Subliminal input: below absolute threshold for conscious awareness.