PSYC 1010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Visual Cortex, Optic Chiasm, Optic Disc

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: Jennifer Steeves

Document Summary

Psychophysics: basic concepts and issues: psychophysics. The study of how physical stimuli are translated into psychological experience: thresholds: looking at limits. Sensation begins with the stimulus, any detectable input from the environment. Threshold is a dividing point between energy levels that do and do not have a detectable effect. An absolute threshold for a specific type of sensory input is the minimum amount of stimulation that an organism can detect. Boundaries of sensory capabilities: weighting the differences: the jnd. A just noticeable difference (jdn) is the smallest difference in the amount of stimulation that a specific sense can detect. Jdn"s very by sense, and the smallest detectable difference is a fairly stable proportion of the size of the original stimulus. States that the size of just noticeable difference is a constant proportion of the size of the initial stimulus. The constant proportion is called weber fraction. Different fractions apply to different sensory input.