PSYC 100 Chapter Notes -Caffeine, Stirrup, Taste

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jaime Palmer- Hague

Document Summary

Receive and translate environmental stimuli into nerve impulses. Making sense of what the senses tell us (processing and interpretation) Absolute threshold: (limits of stimulus detectability) lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected 50% of the time. The lower the threshold, the greater the sensitivity. Decision criterion: how certain one must be that a stimulus is present before they will say they detect it. Will change from time to time depending on hunger, expectation (horror movie), etc. Signal detection theory : factors that influence decisions about whether or not a stimulus is present. Typical signal detection experiments: see p. 128 hit/miss/false alarm/correct rejection. Subliminal stimulus : stimulus so weak/brief that although it is received by the senses, it cannot be perceived consciously (consumer experiment p. 129) Differences threshold: (ability to discriminate between stimuli) the just noticeable difference that people can perceive 50% of the time. Weber"s law: jnd is proportional to the intensity of original stimulus (eg weight is 1/50)