PSY 100 Lecture 3: Sensations and Perception

• School: University of Kentucky
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 100
• Professor: Andrea Friedrich

Document Summary

Physical energy is encoded as neural signs. Sensation: allows the nervous system to receive and represent stimulus energy from our. We detect from the environment the information that we need to function and survive. We detect what are, for us, the important features of the environment. Psychophysics: areas of psychology that studies the relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity and our psychological experience them. The lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected 50% of the time. Subliminal stimulus: stimulus that is so weak or brief that although it is received by the senses it cannot be perceived consciously: difference threshold. Smallest difference between two stimuli that people perceive 50% of the time. We(cid:271)er"s la(cid:449) - to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage rather than a constant amount. Ex: lights: 8% difference in intensity, weight: 2% difference, Light enters the eyes through the cornea.