Sensation and Perception

Devpriya Kumar
PSY151- Introduction to Psychology
 Sensation
• The sense organs’ responses to external
stimuli and the transmission of these
responses to the brain
• The processing, organization, and
interpretation of sensory signals; it results in
an internal representation of the stimulus.
From Sensation to Perception
 Objective
• How sense organs detect various types of
stimuli energy (intensity and wavelength of
light, frequency and amplitude of sound,
concentration of molecules of some taste,
etc.).
• How brain constructs and uses information
about the world (inner world) on basis of what
has been detected
 Camera vs Percpetion
• Perception is not a passive process capturing
physical properties of stimuli.
• Brain constructs perceptual process on basis
of past experiences, filling in empty gaps.
• This might often result in illusions
• Tired
• Old
• Sick
• Dark
• Slow
• Heavy
• Hospital
• ugly
• death
• Beautiful
• Young
• Fresh
• Fast
• Energy
• Juicy
• Clean
• cheerful
• Vigorous
 Sensory Coding- Transduction
• Sensory modalities
– Proximal vs Distal

• Transduction- A process by which sensory

receptors produce neural impulses when they
receive physical or chemical stimulation.

• Receptor->Thalmus-> Sensory Cortical Areas

 Receptors
• Brain needs qualitative and Quantitative
information about stimulus.

• There are different types of receptors

– Individually receptors do a coarse coding of
stimulus
– Different Receptors together can help distinguish
between different stimuli.
Coarse coding vs fine coding
How do you measure perception?
 The bottom line
Our measures of sensation and
perception are by their nature
arbitrary, but by using the
appropriate methods we can be
confident that we’re measuring
sensation or perception and not bias,
memory or attention.
 Psychophysical methods

Psychophysics is a set of methods

(and the results obtained using these
methods) relating sensation to the
physical characteristics of a stimulus
 Two basic approaches

• Thresholds: Measuring limits of sensitivity

• Scaling: Ordering and distributing stimuli along
a perceptual dimension
 Concept of threshold

“The smallest stimulus that can be

perceived”
 Thresholds
If a linear relationship is assumed, two values determine the
(Proportion of Correct Responses)

function:
Linear
– X-intercept: minimum stimulus value that evoked any sensation;
Sensation magnitude

psychophysical
absolute threshold
equation
– Slope: the rate at which sensation grows as we increase intensity;
difference threshold
(inversely proportional to slope)
X-intercept

slope

Stimulus intensity
Click to start
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
Could you see the spot of light?
 Method of constant stimuli for measuring
absolute thresholds

0% 5% 20% 50% 80% 95% 100%

+ - + + + - - - + + + - - - - +

5. Calculate the proportion of “yes” and “no”

responses at each light level
 Method of constant stimuli for measuring
absolute thresholds
100%
Percentage “seen”

75%

50%

25%

0%

Stimulus intensity

6. Plot the percentages against stimulus intensity

 psychometric function
 Difference thresholds
• Linear function 
difference threshold (slope) is constant
• An observer able to detect the difference between intensities 100 and 110
Linear
should also be able to detect the difference between 1000 and 1010. This
is notpsychophysical
the case: the observer is able to detect the difference only between
Sensation magnitude

1000 and equation

1100
• Difference threshold is not constant!

constant
slope

Stimulus intensity
 Difference thresholds
• Difference threshold is not constant (changes with intensity)
 function is nonlinear
Nonlinear
• Weber’s law: difference threshold is a constant proportion of the initial
psychophysical
stimulus value
equation
Sensation magnitude

ΔI / I = c
• Weber’s law
holds only
approximately!

slope changes
with intensity

Stimulus intensity
 Method of constant stimuli for measuring
difference thresholds
Standard stimulus:

Comparison stimuli:

Light intensity

1. Standard stimulus has a fixed intensity

2. The intensities of comparison stimuli bracket the
standard
 Method of constant stimuli for measuring
difference thresholds

3. All pairs of standard and comparison stimuli are

tested many times
 Method of constant stimuli for measuring
difference thresholds

STRONGER WEAKER

4. For each pair, the observer judges if the

comparison stimulus was stronger or weaker than
the standard
 Method of constant stimuli for measuring
difference thresholds
100%
Percentage “stronger”

75%

50%

25%

0%

Light intensity of comparison stimuli

5. For each comparison level, the percentage of

“stronger” responses is calculated and results are
plotted as a psychometric function
 Psychometric function for difference
thresholds
100%
Percentage “stronger”

75%

50%

25%

0%
PSE
Light intensity of comparison stimuli

• When the observer cannot see a difference, he/she chooses

randomly between “stronger” and “weaker”; this
corresponds to 50% on the psychometric function  point
of subjective equivalence (PSE)
 Signal Detection Theory
• Whether or not a signal is detected
depends on
– Intensity of the signal
– Context of human judgment
– SDT states that detecting a stimulus
requires making a judgment about its
presence or absence, based on a
subjective interpretation of ambiguous
information.

• Radar operator example

– Response bias: Tendency to give certain
response for ambiguous trials

During War Peaceful trade root

 Factors influencing detection of signal

• Sensory adaptation-
– If a stimulus is presented continuously, the
responses of the sensory systems that detect it
tend to diminish over time.
– when a continuous stimulus stops, the sensory
systems usually respond strongly as well.
 b. sometimes has a small amount of salt in it and sometimes has no salt
You plan to have them sip a small amount of water and tell you
________________.
a. whether they taste salt or no salt

Gustation- How we taste

b. how much salt is in each sip from diferent glasses of water
You will use the participants’ responses to calculate an absolute threshold for
tasting salt by ________________.
a. comparing hits and false alarms
b. calculating the amount of salt used in each sip of water

FIGURE 5.8 How We Taste

1 Stimulus
When you bite into something,
molecules dissolve in fluid on
your tongue and are received by…
Papillae
2 Receptor
taste receptors in taste buds (on
• Every taste experience is
your tongue and in your mouth and
throat), which transmit that signal…
composed of a mixture of
five basic qualities: sweet,
Taste buds Taste receptor

sour, salty, bitter, and

umami(flavor of
glutamate).

• Taste receptors are more

or less uniformly
distributed.
Nerve fibre

 CHAPTER 5: Sensation and Perception

• Taste preference depends

on different number of
taste receptors.

• Passed on from mother to

child
Olfaction- How we taste
• Olfaction -Sense of smell, which
occurs when receptors in the nose
respond to chemicals.

• olfactory epithelium The thin

layer of tissue, within the nasal
cavity, that is embedded with
smell receptors.

• olfactory bulb The brain centre for

smell, located below the frontal
lobes.

• Thousands of different receptors

• Can not name 1000 different

odours
Haptic sense: Temperature, Pressure, and
pain.
• Temperature- Separate hot and
cold receptors.

• Pressure- Receptors attached to

hair follicle (movement of hair
follicle), capsule receptors
(vibration, steady pressure)

• Pain- Nerve fibers are thinner

than temperature and pressure
• Fast fiber (myelinated) for
sharp pains
• Slow fiber for dull pains
• Phantom Pain
Gate control theory
Hearing- Detecting Sound waves
Transmission from physical world to eye

• Cornea> Lens> Retina

• Pupil->amount of light- controlled by Iris
• Rods & Cones
– Distribution
– Fovea
– Photopigments
Vision
 Transmission from eye to brain
• Bipolar ->Amacrine-> and horizontal cell ->
Ganglion Cell (Optic Nerve) -> Optic Chiasm ->
Thalamus ->Primary Visual Cortex.

• Neurons selectively respond to certain stimuli

– Depending upon receptive field of the neuron
Receptive fields
Receptive field- The region of
visual space to which neurons in
the primary visual cortex are
sensitive.

Shape of the receptive field

determines whether neuron is
sensitive to line or dot.
• Lateral Inhibition-
– A visual process in
which adjacent
photoreceptors tend
to inhibit one
another.
– Important for
detecting edges
• Color detection
 Other senses
• Kinesthetic sense/ Proprioception – Pinpoint
position in space.

• Vestibular- Perception Balance

• ESP
Perception in brain
 HEARING
• Auditory neurons in the thalamus extend their
axons to the primary auditory cortex (called
A1, for the first auditory area), which is in the
temporal lobe.
• Neurons in this region code the frequency (or
pitch) of auditory stimuli.
 Touch
• Touch information from the thalamus is projected to
the primary somatosensory cortex (called S1), which is
in the parietal lobe
• Electrical stimulation of S1 could evoke the sensation
of touch in different regions of the body.
• More-sensitive body parts have relatively larger
amounts of cortical tissue dedicated to them.
• The most sensitive regions of the body, such as lips and
fingers, have a great deal of S1 devoted to them. Other
areas, such as the back and the calves, have very little.
 The visual system
• Primary visual area
– Cells specializing in detecting lines,
edges, and other complex visual
features
• Colour, Shape, form and texture
• What versus the where pathway
(Milner & Goodale, 1992)
– D.F. Object Agnosia
• Could not recognize an object but draw
it.
• Lock & Key
 Milner and Goodale (1995)
• D.F. – 34 year old women suffering from
temporal lobe injury
Visual Pathway
 Knowledge
• Information that the perceiver brings
to the situation.
• Knowledge can affect a number of
steps in the perceptual process.
• Experience helps you better identify
stimuli.
• Example: Police knowing how to
identify evidence.
Context: Beyond bottom up processing
Perceiving Size: Taking distance into account
Perception is not solely determined by retinal
image
Helmholtz theory of unconscious inference

• How do we perceive?
• Perception is like solving a problem
– Which object has caused a particular pattern?
• Likelihood Principle
 Gestalt Theory
• How perceptions are organized together to
form the larger picture

• Gestalt- whole
Law of good continuation
 Pragnanz
• Law of good figure
– Every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that
the resulting structure is as simple as possible.
 Law of Similarity
• Similar things appear to be grouped together.
 Law of meaningfulness or familiarity

• Things that form meaningful or have

familiarity patterns.
Gestalt Principles
 Gestalt laws are heuristic
• Can often result in wrong perception
 Regularities of environment
• Perception is influenced by our knowledge of
regularities in the environment
– Physical Regularities
 Semantic Regularities

– Characteristic associated with the functions

carried out by different scenes.
Figure-Ground segregation

Symmetric regions are seen as figure

 Bottom-Up vs Top Down approaches

• We constructs from a low level

to higher and more complex
features.

• Processing at lower level is

influenced by higher level
knowledge
• Both processes work in parallel
 Face Perception
Ø Involves multiple regions:
- general visual processing regions
- PLUS some dedicated areas (ventral RH)

Right Hemisphere Left Hemisphere

 Face processing has some special properties

e.g. Inversion effect in normals:

» good recall poorer recall

» strong RH advantage poor lateralisation
•
Thatcher illusion
 Face Recognition

 Inversion effect is weakened after RH damage

 Suggests ventral regions of RH have a role in

configuration processing
 Prosopagnosia: Two types
 Prosopagnosia = inability to recognise faces

 Can't tell face from others and/or identify person

1. Accompanied by more general vis. prob's e.g. Dr. P, The man who
mistook his wife for a hat
2. Selective e.g. Lincoln Holmes

P's compensate -> use nonfacial info. or other

modalities (e.g. voice)
PT no longer recognised the people around him including his
wife. However, as soon as his wife spoke, he immediately
recognised her voice. Indeed, he claimed that on hearing her
voice, the visual percept of her would "fall into place".
Culture and faces
 Depth Perception
• Depth perception depends on certain cues available to us
from the stimuli
– Binocular cues- Cues of depth perception that arise from the fact
that people have two eyes.
• Binocular Disparity- A cue of depth perception that is caused by the distance
between a person’s eyes, which provides each eye with a slightly different
image.

– Monocular cues- Cues of depth perception that are available to

each eye alone.
• Occlusion
• Relative Size
• Motion Parallax
(A)

(B)

(A)

(B)
ch 10 107