PSYB51H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Étienne Bonnot De Condillac, Detection Theory, Gustav Fechner
Document Summary
Sensation: the ability to detect a stimulus and to turn that detection into a private experience. Only your own sensory experience is directly accessible to you. Perception: the act of giving meaning to those detected sensations. Everything we feel, think, and do depends on sensations and perceptions reason why philosophers have talked about it for over 2 millennia. 18th century french philosopher etienne bonnot de condillac asked readers to imagine a statue with no senses (thus no mental life). Then he imagined adding the statue"s nose so the mental life would consist of only that smell. By adding more senses and experience, he imagined a real mental life developing. Researchers studying topics in sensation and perception can be found in biology, computer science, medicine, neuroscience, and many other fields. Example, what"s the faintest/loudest sound you can hear. You can change the threshold for the faintest sound if you listened to sounds that are too loud and damage your auditory system.
