PSY-2012 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Neural Adaptation, Ath
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Sensation: the detection of physical energy by our sense organs, which send that info to the brain. Per(cid:272)eptio(cid:374): the (cid:271)rai(cid:374)"s i(cid:374)terpretatio(cid:374) of ra(cid:449) se(cid:374)sory date. Whe(cid:374) the (cid:449)ay (cid:449)e per(cid:272)ei(cid:448)e a sti(cid:373)ulus does(cid:374)"t (cid:373)at(cid:272)h reality, that"s a(cid:374) illusio(cid:374) Despite their differences, all our senses rely on a handful of principles. The external stimulus is converted by a sense receptor into neural activity via transduction. Light and sound waves are converted to electrical signals. Activation is highest when stimulus is first detected, then sensory adaptation occurs. After being transduced, our brains organize sensory data into meaningful concepts. Our brains piece together: what"s i(cid:374) our se(cid:374)sory field, what was there a moment ago, what we remember from our past. We attend to multiple senses at once, called parallel processing (how we perceive the world) Begins with automatic sensory detection and encoding of the stimuli into a meaningful representation. Begins with conscious organization and interpretation of the stimuli using our beliefs and expectations.
