Sensation and Perception

Objectives:
At the end of the class, the student should be able to:

1. Differentiate sensation from perception and explain their relationship;

2. Explain given theories and concepts in sensation and perception;
3. Describe the process of transduction and how it applies to the five senses;
4. Identify and gain knowledge of the parts of the given sense organ;
5. Expound given concepts on perception; and
6. Cite examples related to the given concepts.

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A. Defining Sensation and Perception

Our sense organs receive messages through sensory

receptor cells, which receive outside forms of energy (light,
vibration, heat) and translate them into neural impulses that can
be transmitted to the brain for interpretation. The process of
receiving information from outside world, translating it, and
transmitting it to the brain is called sensation. The process of
interpreting that information and forming images of the world is
called perception. In studying sensation and perception, It is
important to understand the term stimulus which refers to any
aspect of the outside world that directly influences our behavior
or conscious experience (Lahey, 2012)
• Transduction is defined as the translation of
energy in the environment into neural impulse.
• Energy is transduced into neural impulses in the
sense organs by sensory receptor cells.
• Sensory receptor cells are specialized neurons
that are excited by specific kinds of sensory energy and transmit
neural impulses along their axons. Some sensory receptor cells
respond to sound waves, some to light waves, some to
chemicals, and so on (Lahey, 2012).

B. Limits of Sensation: Absolute Thresholds

Absolute Threshold is defined as the minimum
intensity of a stimulus that can be detected 50% of the time. This
50% mark is used because the level of the stimulus required for
it to just be perceived varies from trial to trial and from person to
person during an experiment.

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C. Just Noticeable Difference and Weber’s Law

In addition to establishing absolute thresholds for the
senses, psychophysicists have tried to establish the minimum
change in the intensity of a stimulus that can be detected 50% of
the time. This barely noticeable change in stimulus is referred to
as the difference threshold or the just noticeable difference
(jnd). In the early 1800s, psychophysicist Max Weber discovered
an interesting characteristic of the jnd, known as Weber’s law.
According to this law, for each of our five senses, the amount of
change in the stimulus that is necessary to produce a jnd depends
on the intensity at which the stimulus is first presented. For
example, if you add one additional teaspoon of salt to a very
salty pot of soup, it will probably not be noticeable. But that
same teaspoon of salt added to a less salty pot of soup may be
very noticeable. Weber’s law helps explain some of the
subjectivity we experience in sensation. Under some conditions,
one teaspoon of salt won’t make a difference to our enjoyment of
a recipe. Under other conditions, it might.

D. The Five Senses

1. Vision

1.1 The Anatomy of the Outer Eye

 Cornea is the clear, slightly bulging outer surface of the
eye that both protects the eye and begins the focusing process.
As light waves pass through the material of the cornea, they slow
down and bend – just as they do when they pass through a
camera lens. This bending of light waves plays an essential role
in focusing images on the back of your eye.
 Pupil is located directly behind the cornea. This is a
black opening or aperture through which light passes into the
center of the eye. Light cannot pass through the white part of the
eye, the sclera, therefore, it must pass through the cornea and
pupil to enter the eye.
 Iris is the colored part of the eye surrounding the pupil.
It is constructed of rings of muscles that control the size of the
pupil. In dimly lit conditions, the iris relaxes to dilate the pupil,

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allowing the maximum amount of light into the eye. IN brightly

lit conditions, the iris constricts to close the pupil, thus, reducing
the amount oflight entering the eye so as not to overwhelm the
light-sensitive cells in the eye.
 Lensis clear structures that are attached to the eye with
strong ciliary muscles. It is directly behind the iris and the pupil.
The lens of the eyes is somewhat soft and flexible. As the ciliary
muscles stretch the lens, it changes shape, or undergoes
accommodation, so that the image passing through it is focused
properly.
 Retina. Once the light waves have been focused on the
back of the eye, conversion of light waves into neural impulses
occurs in the retina, the surface that lines the inside of the back
of the eyeball. In the retina, specialized cells called rods and
cones convert light into neural signals. Without these cells,
vision would not be possible. The ganglion cells are on the
surface of the retina, followed by successive layers of amacrine,
bipolar, and horizontal cells, and finally the light-sensitive rods
and cones.
 Rods are light-sensitive cells of the retina that pick up
any type of light energy and convert it into neural impulse.
Rods are long and skinny. If you had only rods in your
retina, you’d see everything in black and white.
 Cones are shorter and fatter than rods. They are
sensitive to specific colors of light and send information to
the brain concerning the colors we are seeing.

The rods and cones of the eye are able to convert light
into neural impulses because they contain light-sensitive
photopigments, chemicals that are activated by light energy.
When a rod is not receiving light input, its photopigment
molecules are stable. However, when light strikes the rod,
this incoming light energy splits the photopigments apart. As
the photopigments break up, they set off a complex chain of
chemical reactions that change the rate at which the neurons
of the visual system fire action potentials.
 Optic Nerve. This is the structure that conveys visual
information away from the retina to the brain. With no rods and
cones in this spot, each of our eyes has a blind spot, which is a
point in our visual field that we cannot see.
 Fovea. This is the point of highest visual acuity; cones
are concentrated here.

E. Theories of Color Vision

THEORY DESCRIPTION
Three different types of cones, each of which contains

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a slightly different photopigment that makes the cell

Trichromatic Theory of Color Vision
Opponent-Process Theory of Color Vision
particularly sensitive to a certain wavelength of light.
One type of cone is particularly sensitive to long
wavelengths (red), another is very sensitive to
medium wavelengths (green), and the third is most
sensitive to short wavelengths (blue)
There are three types of opponent-process cells in our
visual system: red/green, yellow/blue, and
black/white. The key to opponent-process theory is
that these cells can detect the presence of only one
color at a time. The colors oppose each other so that
the opponent-process cell cannot detect either red or
green light at any one time.

F. Audition

1. The Anatomy of the Ear

1. Outer Ear – the outermost parts of the ear, including the

pinna, auditory canal, and surface of the eardrum

 Pinna -The very outside of the outer ear. The pinna acts
as a funnel to gather sound waves.

2. Middle Ear – part of the ear behind the eardrum and in front
of the oval window, including the hammer, anvil and stirrup.

 Auditory Canal – After being gathered by the pinna,

sound waves are channeled to the tube connecting the pinna to
the middle ear - the auditory canal, where sounds are amplified
and then strike the membrane at the end of the auditory canal,
the eardrum.
 Eardrum, or tympanic membrane – It is a very thin
membrane that vibrates as the sound waves strike it, much as the
head of a drum vibrates when a drumstick strikes it.
 Hammer, anvil, and stirrup - The three bones of the
middle ear that are directly behind the eardrum .These very small
bones mechanically amplify vibrations coming from the eardrum
and transmit them to the inner ear.

3. Inner ear – innermost potion of the ear that includes the

cochlea.
 Oval window is found on the outer end of the cochlea,
one of the major components of the inner ear.
 Cochlea is a coiled, fluid-filled tube about 1.4inches
long that resembles a snail. It is here that sound waves are turned
into neutral impulses.If you were to uncoil the cochlea, you
would see that it resembles a flexible tube that is closed off at the

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end. The inside of the tube contains a fluid-filled canal called the
cochlear duct.
 Round Window is a membrane that relieves pressure
from the vibrating waves in the cochlear fluid.
 Organ of Corti refers to the sensory receptor in the
cochlea that transduces sound waves into coded neural impulses.
 Basilar membrane. is the structure in the cochlear duct
that contains the hair cells, which convert sound waves into
action potentials.
 Hair Cells are neurons that grow out of the basilar
membrane and convert sound waves into action potentials.

G. The Auditory Pathways of the Brain

 Once the hair cells convert sound into neural impulses,
these impulses must be sent to the brain for further processing.
Attached to the end of the cochlea is the auditory nerve. The
bundled neurons of the auditory nerve gather the information
from the hair cells to relay It to the brain (Pastorino, & Doyle-
Portillo, 2013).
.
.

H. Theories of Pitch Perception(Lahey, 2012)

THEORY DESCRIPTION
Place theory Different pitches of sound activate specific regions of the basilar
membrane more than others. Pitch perception occurs when the
brain notices which portions of the basilar membrane are being
most excited by incoming sound waves.
Frequency Theory The hair cells of the basilar membrane fire action potentials at a rate
equal to the frequency of the incoming sound wave. The brain
determines pitch by noticing the rate at which the hair cells are
firing. This theory explains only perception of pitches up to
1000Hz, the maximum firing rate of a hair cell.
Volley Theory Similar to frequency theory, this theory states that groups of hair
cells fire as teams to give us the perception of pitches over 1000Hz.
For example, three hair cells each firing at 1000hz together yield
the perception of a 3000Hz tone.0
Duplicity Theory This theory states that a combination of a frequency and place
information is used in pitch perception. Exactly how these sources
of information are integrated in the brain is still being investigated.

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I. Gustation(Taste) and Olfaction (Smell)

For most of us, the senses of taste and smell are
interconnected. These two senses are called chemical senses
because they require that certain chemicals come into direct
contact with our sense organs. For taste, or gustation, to occur,
certain chemicals in foods and other substances must be
dissolved in our saliva and come into direct contact with the
sense organ commonly known as the tongue. For smell,
chemicals in the nearby air – from food or other substances –
must come into contact with cells in the nasal cavity. (Pastorino,
& Doyle-Portillo, 2013).

J. Some Facts about Gustation

 There are about 10,000 taste buds on the tongue and

each taste bud contains approximately a dozen sensory receptors,
called taste cells.
 Taste cells are sensitive to chemicals in our food and
drink (Bartoshuk, 1988 in Lahey, 2012).
 Papillae are clusters of taste buds on the tongue

 Taste buds respond to thousands of chemicals. There are

taste buds that respond primarily to chemicals that give rise to
the sensation of sweetness (mostly sugars), sourness (mostly
acids), saltiness (mostly salts), and bitterness (in response to a
variety of chemicals that have no food value or are toxic).
 There is evidence that there is a fifth type of taste bud,
which gives rise to the sensation of fattiness in response to fats
(Schiffman et al.,1998 in Lahey, 2012).
 Some scientists believe that there is another kind of taste
bud that give rise to the sensation called umami ( the savory
taste of meat stock, cheese, and mushrooms), but this has been
shown to arise from the same taste buds that give rise to the
sensation of sweetness( Li et al., 2002 in Lahey, 2012).
 We lose taste buds as we age, especially over 45 years of
age. Babies have the most taste buds and are very sensitive,
whereas older adults are less sensitive to the chemicals that give
rise to taste sensation (Schiffman et al.,1998 in Lahey, 2012).
 Unlike some types of sensory cells, taste buds can
regenerate.

K. Some Facts about Olfaction

 Olfaction, our sense of smell, has adaptive value. Smells
can alert us to danger. The ability to smell smoke enables us to

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detect a fire long before we see flames( Pastorino, & Doyle-

Portillo, 2013).
 Chemicals in the air we breathe pass by the olfactory
receptors on their way to the lungs. These sheet receptor cells
are called olfactory epithelium located at the top of the nasal
cavity( Pastorino, & Doyle-Portillo, 2013)..
 When it comes to discriminating between odors, we can
detect roughly 500,000 different scents and we can identify by
name about 10,000 different smells. us to capture our
attention( Pastorino, & Doyle-Portillo, 2013)..
 Nearly all the chemicals that humans can detect as odors
are organic compounds, meaning they come from living things.
In contrast, we can smell very few inorganic compounds such as
rocks and sand (Lahey, 2012).

L. Tactile

1. Some Facts about the Skin (Lahey, 2012).

The skin can detect only three kinds of sensory
information such as pressure, temperature, and pain.
 There are four types of receptors in the skin: free nerve
endings, the basket cells, the tactile discs, and the specialized
end bulbs.
 Free nerve endings are sensory receptor cells in the skin
that detect pressure, temperature, and pain. Nocioreceptors in the
free nerve endings serve as receptors for stimuli that are
experienced as painful
 Pain signals are regulated in three parts of the nervous
system: the brain stem, the spinal cord, and in the peripheral pain
receptors (Melzack, 1999; Perl, 2007 in Lahey, 2012).
 Basket cells at the base of the hair, tactile discs and
specialized end bulbs detect pressure.

M.THE BODY SENSES

Messages about the orientation, balance, and movement
of the body come to us from the skin senses (pressure on
different parts of our body) and from two kinds of sense organs

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(Lackner & DiZio, 2005 in Lahey, 2012). A complicated set of

sensory structures called the vestibular organ is located in the
inner section of the ear, where it provides the cerebral cortex
with information about orientation and movement. Individual
sensory receptors, called kinesthetic receptors, located in the
muscles, joints, and skin provide additional messages about
movement, posture, and orientation.

 Vestibular Organ is composed of two sets of small

sensory structures: the semicircular canals and the linked saccule
and utricle. The saccule and utricle are fluid-filled sacs in the
inner ear that contain sensory receptors that keep the brain
informed about the body’s orientation. Further, the semicircular
canal provides the most sensitive message to the brain about
orientation.
 Kinesthetic Receptors provide detailed information on
the orientation of the head and body, differences in pressure due
to gravity and movement on different parts of thebody, the
movement of each part, and a host of other kinds of information
(Gray, 2008; Sholl, 2008 in Lahey, 2012).

N. Perception: Interpreting Sensory Messages

Perception is the interpretation of sensation. It’s an

active process in which perceptions are created often go
beyond the minimal information provided by the senses.
The proceeding discussion of perception focuses on visual
perception, rather than all of the perceptual systems
because scientist understand better how it works better than
they do other systems; and it is representative enough of
other systems to tell us something about the process of
perception.

O. Gestalt Principles of Perception

1. Figure-ground. When we perceive a visual

stimulus, part of what we see is the center of our attention,
the figure, and the rest is the indistinct ground.
2. Continuity. We tend to perceive lines or patterns
that follow a smooth contour as being part of a single unit.

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3. Proximity. Things that are proximal (close

together) are usually perceived as belonging together.
4. Similarity. Similar things are perceived as being
related.
5. Closure. Missing sensory information is
automatically “filled in” in the process of perception to
create complete and whole perceptions (Kellman et al.,
2005 in Lahey, 2012).

P. Types of Perceptual Constancy

Perceptual constancy is the tendency for

perceptions of objects to remain relatively unchanged in
spite of changes in raw sensations.
1. Brightness Constancy
2. Color Constancy
3. Size Constancy
4. Shape Constancy

Q. Depth Perception

1. Monocular Cues to Depth Perception can be

perceived by one eye. We use this monocular cues in
everyday life and artist manipulate them to create images in
art that appear to have depth on flat surfaces and to bring
computer-animated figures to life.
1.1 Texture Gradient. The texture of an object
is larger and more visible up close and smaller
when far away. On curved surfaces, the elements of
texture are also more slanted when the surface does
not squarely face us.
1.2 Linear Perspective. Objects cast smaller
images on the retina when they are more distant. As
a result, parallel lines, such as railroad tracks,
appear to grow closer together the farther away they
are from us.
1.3 Superposition. Closer objects tend to be
partially in front of, or partially cover up, more
distant objects.

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1.4 Shadowing. The shadows cast by objects

and highlights of reflected light suggest their depth.
1.5 Speed of Movement. Objects farther away
appear to move across the field of vision more
slowly than do closer objects.
1.6 Aerial Perspective. Water vapor and
pollution in the air scatter light waves, giving
distant objects a bluish, hazy appearance
compared with nearby objects.
1.7 Accommodation. The shape of the lens of
the eye must change to focus the visual image on
the retina from stimuli that are different distances
from the eye.
1.8 Vertical Position. When objects are on the
ground, the farther they appear to be below the
horizon, the closer they appear to be to us. For
objects in the air, however, the farther they appear
to be above the horizon, the closer they appear to
us.

 Binocular Cues in depth perception require both

eyes to allow us to perceive depth.
The two binocular cues are:
1. Convergence. When both eyes are looking at an
object in the center of the visual field, they must angle
inward more sharply for a near object than for a distant
object.
2. Retinal Disparity. Because our two eyes are a
couple of inches apart, they do not see the same view of
three-dimensional objects, especially when the object is
close. This disparity or difference, between the images on
the two retinas is a key factor in depth perception.
 Visual Illusions – visual stimuli in which the cues
used in visual perception create a false perception.
Examples: Muller-Lyer Illusion; Ponzo Illusion

References:

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Lahey, B. (2012). Psychology: An Introduction. (11 th Ed.)

NY: McGraw Hill.

Pastorino, E. & Doyle-Portillo, S. (2013). What is

Psychology? Essentials. (2nd Ed.) Canada: Wadsworth,
Cengage Learning.

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