PSYA01H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Retinal Ganglion Cell, Parietal Lobe, Detection Theory
Document Summary
Measuring absolute and difference threshold depends on the assumption that a threshold exists. Humans don"t suddenly and rapidly switch between perceiving and not perceiving: going from not sensing to sensing is gradual. Accurate perception of a sensory stimulus is haphazard: sensory signals face a lot of competition (noise: all the other stimuli coming from the internal and external environment. Competes with your ability to detect a stimulus with perfect, focused attention: rarely able to just focus on one stimulus at a time. Noise takes away the ability to perceive everything that you sense and may also cause you to perceive things that you haven"t sensed (hearing beeps that aren"t really there) Sdt -> a way to measure perceptual sensitivity: how accurate the perceptual system represents sensory events. Real-life situations must take into account the consequences of hits, misses, false alarms, and correct rejection. Smells fading, getting used to cold water.
