PSYCH101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Detection Theory, Color Vision, Two-Streams Hypothesis

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: Paul Wehr

Document Summary

Psych 101 chapter four (sensory and perception) notes. Sensation the process of detecting external events by sense organs, and turning those stimuli into neural signals. Perception involves attending to, organizing, and interpreting the stimuli that we sense. Transduction when specialized receptors transform the physical energy of the outside world into neural impulses. The doctrine of specific nerve energies different senses are separated in the brain (we hear because auditory information gets sent to our temporal lobes, which generates our experience of hearing. Sensory adaptation the reduction of activity in sensory receptors with repeated exposure to a stimulus. Absolute threshold the minimum amount of energy or quantity of a stimulus required for it to be reliably detected at least 50% of the time it is presented. Difference threshold the smallest difference between stimuli that can be reliably detected at least 50% of the time. Just noticeable difference (jnd) whether or not you actually detect a difference;