PSYA01H3 Chapter 5: Psychology Chapter 5.docx
Document Summary
Function of the sense organs is to provide information that can help guide behaviour. The translation of information about environmental events into neural activity is called transduction. In the neural system information must be translated into two types of neural codes: Psychophysics is the study of the relationship between the physical characteristics of stimuli and the perceptions they produce. Purpose: our senses are the means by which we experience the world; everything we learn is detected by sense organs and transmitted into our brain by sensory nerves, otherwise we would have no purpose. The visual scene received by our eyes changes rapidly as we move our body, our head, and our eyes. Its intensity changes as we move toward or away from the as we move toward or away from its origin, on the whole these changes are more gradual than those faced by the visual system. Furthermore, sounds carry around obstacles in ways that light does not.
