PSY 12000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Herman Snellen, Snellen Chart, Detection Theory
11 Dec 2018
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Document Summary
Sensation: simple stimulation of a sense organ. Perception: takes place after sensation at the level of our brain, the organization, identification, and interpretation of a sensation in order to form a mental representation. Transduction: occurs when many sensors in the body convert physical signals from our environment into encoded neural signals sent to our central neural system. Psychophysics: methods that measure the strength of a stimulus and the observers sensitivity to that stimulus. Absolute threshold: the minimal intensity needed to barely detect a stimulus in 50% of the trials: lowest level you can tell there is something there. Just noticeable difference (jnd): the minimal change in a stimulus that can barely be detected: smallest change that you can tell was something changed/different. Signal detection theory: holds that the response to stimulus depends on both the persons sensitivity to the stimulus and the presence of noise and on a person"s decision criterium.
