20.8.

18
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Vision, Audition and Other Senses

Perception: Definition, Approaches to Perception
Perception of Form, Space and Movement
Dynamics of Perception
Attention – Organization and Interpretation
Sensation is the body's detection of external or internal
stimulation
Process of picking up information and relaying it to the
brain
The process of making sense out of our sensations is
called perception
Sensations are experienced by specialized organs where
sensory neurons are concentrated and function as
receptors
Sensation involves 3 steps

 Sensory receptors detect stimuli

 Sensory stimuli are transduced into electrical
impulses to be decoded by the brain
 Electrical impulses move down neural pathways
to specific parts of the brain wherein the
impulses are decoded into useful information
(perception)
 Sensations Sense Organs
Visual Eyes
Auditory Ears
Olfactory Smell
Gustatory Taste
Cutaneous Skin
Somatosensory Bodily changes
Proprioception Vestibular & Kinesthetic
Osmoreception Sensation of Thirst
Due to a dysfunctional sensation process
 ineffectivereceptors
 nerve damage
 cerebral impairment
 Blindness is the complete or nearly complete
inability to see.
 Deafness or hearing loss may occur in one or
both ears.
 Aging is associated with loss of intensity in
taste. Complete inability to taste is called
ageusia.
 Anosmia is the inability to smell.
 Astereognosis is the inability to identify an
object by touch.
 Umami or savory taste is one of the five basic tastes (together
with sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and saltiness). It has been
described as brothy or meaty.
 A loanword from the Japanese umami can be translated as
"pleasant savory taste". This neologism was coined in 1908 by
Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda from
a nominalization of umai "delicious".
 People taste umami through taste receptors specific to glutamate.
Glutamate is widely present in savory foods, such as meat broths
and fermented products, and commonly added to some foods in
the form of monosodium glutamate (MSG).
 Since umami has its own receptors rather than arising out of a
combination of the traditionally recognized taste receptors,
scientists now consider umami to be a distinct taste.
 Theabsolute threshold- the minimum amount of
stimulation that a person can detect 50% of the time

 Thedifference threshold (or just noticeable difference)-

the minimum difference that must happen between two
stimuli for the body to identify them as two separate
sensations 50% of the time

 Theterminal threshold- the maximum amount of

stimulation that a person can sense
 Perception is the organization,
identification and interpretation
of sensory information in order to
represent and understand the
environment
 The process of converting a sense
impression into the awareness of
an object or meaningful situation
is called the process of perception
 DistalStimulus
 Proximal Stimulus
 Percept
Tendency to integrate pieces of information into
meaningful wholes
Perception of Form:
 Law of Proximity
 Law of Similarity
 Law of Prägnanz
 Law of Figure & Background
 Law of Closure
 Law of Continuity
According to the law of
proximity, things that are
near each other seem to
be grouped together.
The law of similarity suggests
that things similar things tend
to appear grouped together.
Grouping can occur in both
visual and auditory stimuli. In
the image above, for example,
you probably see the
groupings of squares and
circles as columns
The word pragnanz is a
German term meaning
"good figure."
The law of Pragnanz
holds that objects in the
environment are seen in a
way that makes them
appear as simple as
possible.
According to the law of
closure, things are
grouped together if they
seem to complete some
entity.
The law of continuity holds
that points that are connected
by straight or curving lines
are seen in a way that follows
the smoothest path. Rather
than seeing separate points
and angles, they are seen as
belonging together
The law of Figure and
Background suggests
that we perceive an
object by identifying a
figure from the
background
According to the law of
symmetry we perceive
objects as symmetrical
shapes that form around
their centre

[ ][ ][ ]
Monocular Cues:
 Size
 Gradient
 Parallax
 Aerial perspective
 Linear perspective
 Overlap
Binocular cues:
 Stereopsis
or retinal (binocular) disparity
 Convergence
 Shadow Stereopsis
 Accommodation
24.8.18
L - 15

 Height (vertical plane)

“above” or “below”
 Width (horizontal plane) “to
the right” or “to the left”
 Depth (sagittal plane)
“above” or “below”
People tend to see what they intend to see
Based on:
 Experience
 Expectations
 Motivation
 Culture
 Attentionis the cognitive process of selectively
concentrating on one aspect of the environment
while ignoring other things
 Spot-light Model
 Performing two tasks simultaneously
Gestalt:
 Tendency to integrate pieces of
information into meaningful
wholes.
 Perceptual Set
A mental predisposition to perceive one
thing and not another
 Context Effects
We often interpret ambiguous situations
based on things around it