PSYC 1000 Chapter Notes -Optical Illusion, Detection Theory, Absolute Threshold

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1000
• Professor: Dan Meegan

Document Summary

Sensation is the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment. Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events. Bottom-up processing is analysis that beings at the sensory receptors and moves its way up to higher levels of processing. Top-down processing constructs perceptions from the sensory input by drawing on our experience and expectations: bottom up shows what we see and top down interprets it. Our senses: receive sensory stimulation, often using specialized receptor cells, transforms that stimulation into neural impulse, deliver the neural information to our brain. Transduction is the process of converting one form of energy into another that our brain can use. Psychophysics is the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them.