Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Olfactory Bulb, Auditory Cortex, Detection Theory

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Terry Biggs

Document Summary

Synesthesia: the mixing of the senses, eg. experience sound as colours. Synesthetic people have a cross wiring evoking experience from multiple parts of brain: no cut in brain during development, overstimulation of neurons, binding problem how to bind elements of perception and segregate sensory elements. Sensation: stimulus detection process translate environmental stimuli into nerve impulses. Transduction (see above): process where stimulus are converted into nerve impulses. Psychophysics: study between physical characteristics and sensory capabilities: absolute limits of sensitivity: the smallest/weakest thing we can sense, differences in stimuli: small difference, how much difference before knowing different. Stimulus detection: the absolute threshold: lowest intensity at which stimulus can be detected correctly 50% of the time, lower absolute threshold = higher sensitivity. Sensory adaptation: sensory systems are finely tuned to changes in stimulation (from environment, etc. , sensory adaptation: sensory neurons decrease activity and diminish sensitivity to unchanging stimuli, sensory adaptation is important for survival alerting when needed.