5-8
The Eye
Retina: The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers or neurons that begin the processing of visual information.
Rods: Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray.
Cones: Retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. They detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations.
Optic nerve: The nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain.
Blind spot: The point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because no receptor cells are located there.
We do not see images upside down because the cells in our retina make light energy into neural impulses
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that get sent to the brain and then reassembled into an upright object. 5-9 Visual Information Processing Feature detectors: nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of a stimulus, such as edges, lines and angles.
Parallel processing: The processing of several aspects of a problem or scene simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision.
Feature detectors in our temporal lobe by our right ear allow us to perceive faces. When magnetic pulses disrupt that area of the brain we lose that ability. Parallel processing allows us to have a perception of movement without it it would seem like people would suddenly appear in a different place then they were before.
5-10
Color Vision
Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three color) theory: The theory that the retina contains three different color receptors-one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue-which when stimulated in combination can produce the perception of any color.
Opponent-process theory: The theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision.
5-11
Visual Organization
Gestalt: an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful
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wholes. Figure-Ground: the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground) Grouping: the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into meaningful groups. The whole may exceeded the sum of its parts. Three examples of how our brain groups meaningful forms are proximity (grouping figures), continuity (smooth continuous patterns) and closure (filling gin gaps to create a whole object). 5-12 Depth Perception Depth perception: the ability to create three-dimensional perceptions from the two-dimensional images that strike the retina. Visual cliff: is a laboratory device for testing depth perception, especially in infants and animals. In the experiments, Gibson and Walk found strong evidence that depth perception is at least in part innate. Binocular cues: depth cues that depend on information from both eyes Retinal disparity: the differences between the images received by the left eye and the right as a result of viewing the world from slightly different angles. It is a binocular depth cue, since the greater the difference between the two images, the nearer the object. Monocular cues: depth cues that depend on information from only one eye People and animals are biologically prepared from birth to be able to perceive depth and heighten our fear of heights. Binocular helps with viewing the depth of things close up where monocular helps with seeing the depth of something far away. Bi meaning two Mono being single. 5-13 Perceptual Constancy Perceptual Constancy: perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent shapes, size, lightness, and color) even as illumination and retinal images change Color constancy: Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object. Our brain allows us to perceive objects at a constant size and shape even when the distance changes. There are times when our perception can deceive us based on an objects surroundings (the moon looking lager when it is close to the horizon but looking through a tube makes it smaller) 5-14 Experience and Visual Perception Perceptual Adaptation: in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field Audition: The sense or act of hearing. People that are born blind but then after surgery to see again lack the experience to visually recognize shapes and can't complete faces. Sensory restriction is a critical period for some aspects for sensory perceptual development. Perceptual adaptation, person is given glasses that shift vision dramatically and they are able to adapt to it. 5-15 Sound Waves: From the Environment Into the Brain Frequency: The number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time. Pitch: A tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency Sound waves are bands of compressed and expanded air. Our ears detect these changes in air pressure and transform them into neural impulses, which the brain decodes as sound. Sound waves vary in amplitude, which we perceive as differing loudness, and in frequency, which we experience as differing pitch. 5-16 Decoding Sound Waves Cochlea: A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses. Sensorineural hearing loss: Hearing loss caused by damage the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves Conduction hearing loss: Hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea. Cochlear implant: A device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea. The outer ear is the visible portion of the ear. The middle ear is the chamber between the eardrum and cochlea. The inner ear consists of the cochlea, semicircular canals, and vestibular sacs. Through a mechanical chain of events, sound waves traveling through the auditory canal cause tiny vibrations in the eardrum. The bones of the middle ear amplify the vibrations and relay them to the cochlea. Moving of the basilar membrane, caused by pressure changes in the cochlear fluid makes tiny hair cells move around, triggering neural messages to be sent to the auditory cortex in the brain. 5-17 Touch There are four distinct skin senses: warmth, pressure, cold and pain. The only one that has identifiable receptors is pressure. 5-18 Pain Hypnosis: a social interaction in which one person (the subject) responds to a suggestion by another person (the hypnotist) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts or behaviors will spontaneously occur. posthypnotic suggestions: A suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors. Pain reflects bottom-up sensations (such as input from nociceptors, the sensory receptors that detect hurtful temperatures, pressure, or chemicals) and top-down processes (such as experience, attention, and culture). One theory of pain is that a "gate" in the spinal cord either opens to permit pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers to reach the brain, or closes to prevent their passage. The biopsychosocial perspective views our perception of pain as the sum of biological, psychological, and social-cultural influences.
Pain treatments often combine physical and psychological elements, including placebos and distractions.
5-19
Taste
Taste and smell are chemical senses. Taste is a composite of five basic sensations—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami—and of the aromas that interact with information from the taste receptor cells of the taste buds.
There are no basic sensations for smell. We have some 5 million olfactory receptor cells, with about 350 different receptor proteins. Odor molecules trigger combinations of receptors, in patterns that the olfactory cortex interprets. The receptor cells send messages to the brain's olfactory bulb, then to the temporal lobe, and to parts of the limbic system.
The influence of smell on our sense of taste is an example of sensory interaction. Embodied cognition is the influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments.
5-20
Body Position and Movement
Kinesthesia: The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.
Vestibular sense: The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of
balance. Through kinesthesis, we sense the position and movement of our body parts. We monitor our body's position and movement, and maintain our balance with our vestibular sense. 5-21 Sensory Interaction Sensory interaction: The principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste. Embodied Cognition: the influence of bodily sensations, gestures and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments. Extrasensory Perception (ESP): the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; include telepathy, clairvoyance, and recognition Parapsychology is the study of paranormal phenomena, including extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis. The three most testable forms of ESP are telepathy (mind-to-mind communication), clairvoyance (perceiving remote events), and precognition (perceiving future events). Skeptics argue that (1) to believe in ESP, you must believe the brain is capable of perceiving without sensory input; (2) Researchers have been unable to replicate ESP phenomena under controlled conditions.
The three primary colors - as far as light is concerned - are red, green, and blue. In order to "see" images, the human eye enables light to stimulate the retina (a neuro-membrane lining the inside of the back of the eye). The retina is made up of what are called rods and cones. The rods, located in the peripheral retina, give u...
The pupil is where light can enter the eye. The iris is in control of the amount of light that actually goes through. The light reaches the lens, which alters the shape of it so the eye can focus on it. Light reaches the retina, which consists of cones and rods. Colors are saw differently based on their implied meanings, which to various psychological functions. The cones are responsible for color. The color red would have such an effect on people’s perception of others based on their production of affect, behavior and cognition. A sociocultural theorist would explain this effect by indicating that the associations with the color red are normal. When a student sees a plethora of red marks on their paper, they automatically think they failed the assignment. Biological theorist would best explain this theory by saying the color red helps them survive or reproduce. A man may be attracted to a woman more because she is wearing red. This attractiveness could cause him to find his mate and eventually reproduce. A behavioral theorist would explain this effect by saying the color red provokes pleasure and avoids pain. A person can associate red with romance and
retina. The image that forms on your retina is flat, but you see a world of
The high percentages of individuals who endure this impairment justifies and practically demands future research because the causes are not fully understood. The need for future research can be better emphasized if those with normal vision try to empathize with victims of macular degeneration. One can only imagine how frustrating it must be to receive sensatrions only in the periphery of the retina. Because the macula encompassed the cone rich fovea, which is used to focus on objects, the fovea degenerates as well. This occurence inables individuals to interpret the sensations they experience. Reading, ...
Let's look at smell again, then. My last paper left off with the following conclusions regarding the olfactory system. There are between 500 and 1000 unique protein receptor genes which are expressed only in the olfactory epithelium. These receptors each respond to a unique odorant or to a unique feature on an odorant molecule (epitopes). It is suggested that there is a one - to - one relationship between a specific odorant, its protein receptor, and the sensory neuron: that is, any given sensory neuron expresses only one type of receptor and is therefore responsive to only one kind of odorant. Each type of neuron is randomly distributed across one of four zones within the olfactory epithelium. The information from this population coding is then reorganized, as these axons leave the epithelium and travel to the olfactory bulb, into a very specific, spatially organized map of activity across the several hundred kinds of receptors. The span between the 1000 types of receptor neurons, and discrimination amongst 10,000 odors, is bridged in the interpretation of the ratios and relationships of activity level across the population. The olfactory bulb was compared to an operators switchboard, and the process of odor identification was likened to determining which switchboard lights were flashing. The obvious question then becomes, what parts of the brain watch over the olfactory bulb, monitor its activity and interpret that activity? What parts of the brain assign meaning and identity to each pattern of stimulation, and then choose an appropriate response?
It was determined that infants develop color vision at or around three months of age and that when final results were evaluated and compared to adult (only) measures, actually have better quality color vision (Brown et al., 1994). An interesting study by Chase (1937) made efforts to discover the identities of color in which infants that aged 2 to 10 weeks old were tested to find out what colors they could perceive. The results they came up with were that very young infants could tell the difference between the primary colors and combinations but there were numerous limitations to the study (Chase, 1937). The study had placed infants to lie down and view a screen while observing eye movements (Chase, 1937). Findings by Franklin, Pilling, and Davies (2005) explain that color categorizing occurs in four month old infants and adults alike. A study by Bornstein, Kessen, & Weiskopf (1976) has supporting evidence that color is categorized in 4 month old infants and determined the boundaries within...
The retina contains rods and cones which detect the intensity and frequency of incoming light and, in turn, send nerve impulses to the brain.
Sight is the capability of the eyes to focus and detect images, hearing or audition is the sense of sound perception, taste refers to the capability to detect the taste of substances such as food, smell refers to the capability of detecting odors and touch responds to pressure receptors. There are about 6 million specialized cells just for smelling. Separate senses with their own receptor organs, taste and smell are nonetheless intimately entwined. This
the cornea and the sclera. The cornea is what covers the iris, and is the
Sensation refers to the process of sensing what is around us in our environment by using our five senses, which are touching, smell, taste, sound and sight. Sensation occurs when one or more of the various sense organs received a stimulus. By receiving the stimulus, it will cause a mental or physical response. It starts in the sensory receptor, which are specialized cells that convert the stimulus to an electric impulse which makes it ready for the brain to use this information and this is the passive process. After this process, the perception comes into play of the active process. Perception is the process that selects the information, organize it and interpret that information.
Perception is defined as the process of organizing, interpreting, and selectively extracting sensory information . Visual perception is left to the individual person to make up their own mind. Perceptual organisation occurs when one groups the basic elements of the sensory world into the coherant objects that one perceives. Perception is therefore a process through which the brain makes sense of incoming stimuli.
First, one must have the five senses; taste, smell, hear, see, and feel. Yes, these are physical aspects, however, these senses are what any human needs to be, human. For example, the human body needs to be able to taste. It must ingest food, and the food must appeal to a decent taste. A human must also be able to smell, so one may smell a poisonous gas, delicious food, or any other stench that may linger in the air. To be able to hear, enables the human to hear danger or a noise that appeals to them. When seeing, danger is also noted as well as the care of others. When one feels, the object that is being felt may make the person feel comfortable. Not only the sense of touching, but feelings.
Our objective for this lab was to learn more about the distribution and capabilities of sensory cells. In Table 1, the mean for the angle stimulus detected was 78° and the mean for the angle color detected was 58°. The results from the table indicated that I was able to detect an object was near before I was able to detect the color of the object. Being able to detect an object before detecting the objects’ color could be explained by the type of photoreceptors located in the center and periphery of the retina. Based on my results from Table 1, I was able to conclude that the photoreceptor that is most common in the center of my eye is cone cells. I was able to conclude this due to the mean angle to which color was detected. Thus, the photoreceptor most common in the periphery would be the rod cells.
One sub-system under the sensory system is the visual system; the main sense organs of this are the eyes. The eye is the sensory organ that allows us to detect light from external stimuli. When a light ray is detected, the eye converts these rays into electrical signals that can be sent to the brain in order to process the information and giv...
The Eye is the organ of sight. Eyes enable people to perform daily tasks and to learn about the world that surrounds them. Sight, or vision, is a rapidly occurring process that involves continuous interaction between the eye, the nervous system, and the brain. When someone looks at an object, what he/she is really seeing is the light that the object reflects, or gives off.