PSY-200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Candle Wick, Nocturnality, White Noise
Document Summary
Sensation vs perception, vision, hearing, chemical receptors, synesthesia. Sensation- a physical process (removing hand from hot stove-reacting to sensation: a stimulus interaction with a sensory neuron (receptor) and producing an impulse we. Know we are being stimulated but we don"t know what it is. Stimulus of our sense organs by energy/chemicals from the outer world: transforms physical stimuli into pattern of action potentials. Perception- psychological process (identification- hand was burning, it was hot) takes longer, act of organizing and interpreting sensory signals. Sensory neuron (receptor) changes physical energy (light, chemical, pressure etc into an impulse. Repetition often leads to sensory adaptation: process by which our sensitivity diminishes when an object constantly stimulates our senses, constantly feeling clothes, smell of home, white noise. Psycho psychics- study relationship between the physical world and our mental world. Absolute threshold- lowest intensity one can report 50% of the time- ex: candle wick 30 miles away on clear night.
