INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

Unit XI: Sensation and Perception

________________________________________________________________________________

Introduction to Sensation and Perception

Imagine standing on a city street corner. You might be struck by movement everywhere as
cars and people go about their business, by the sound of a street musician's melody or a
horn honking in the distance, by the smell of exhaust fumes or of food being sold by a
nearby vendor, and by the sensation of hard pavement under your feet.

We rely on our sensory systems to provide important information about our

surroundings. We use this information to successfully navigate and interact with our
environment so that we can find nourishment, seek shelter, maintain social relationships,
and avoid potentially dangerous situations. But while sensory information is critical to our
survival, there is so much information available at any given time that we would be
overwhelmed if we were forced to attend to all of it. In fact, we are aware of only a fraction
of the sensory information taken in by our sensory systems at any given time.
This chapter will provide an overview of how sensory information is received and processed
by the nervous system and how that affects our conscious experience of the world. We begin by
learning the distinction between sensation and perception. Then we consider the physical
properties of light and sound stimuli, along with an overview of the basic structure and function
of the major sensory systems. The chapter will close with a discussion of a historically
important theory of perception called the Gestalt theory. This theory attempts to explain some
underlying principles of perception.

1. SENSATION

What does it mean to sense something? Sensory receptors are specialized neurons that
respond to specific types of stimuli. When sensory information is detected by a sensory
receptor, sensation has occurred. For example, light that enters the eye causes chemical
changes in cells that line the back of the eye. These cells relay messages, in the form of
action potentials (as you learned when studying biopsychology), to the central nervous
system. The conversion from sensory stimulus energy to action potential is known as
transduction. You have probably known since elementary school that we have five senses:
vision, hearing (audition), smell (olfaction), taste (gustation), and touch (somato-sensation).
It turns out that this notion of five senses is over simplified. We also have sensory systems
that provide information about balance (the vestibular sense), body position and
movement (proprioception and kinesthesia), pain (nociception), and temperature (thermo-
perception).
The sensitivity of a given sensory system to the relevant stimuli can be expressed as an
absolute threshold. Absolute threshold refers to the minimum amount of stimulus energy
that must be present for the stimulus to be detected 50% of the time. Another way to think
about this is by asking how dim can a light be or how soft can a sound be and still be
detected half of the time. The sensitivity of our sensory receptors can be quite amazing. It
has been estimated that on a clear night, the most sensitive sensory cells in the back of the
eye can detect a candle flame 30 miles away (Okawa & Sampath, 2007). Under quiet
conditions, the hair cells (the receptor cells of the inner ear) can detect the tick of a clock
20 feet away (Galanter, 1962).
It is also possible for us to get messages that are presented below the threshold for
conscious awareness these are called subliminal messages. A stimulus reaches a
physiological threshold when it is strong enough to excite sensory receptors and
send nerve impulses to the brain: This is an absolute threshold. A message below
that threshold is said to be subliminal: We receive it, but we are not consciously aware of it.
Over the years there has been a great deal of speculation about the use of subliminal
messages in advertising, rock music, and self-help audio programs.
Research evidence shows that in laboratory settings, people can process and respond to
information outside of awareness. But this does not mean that we obey these messages like
zombies; in fact, hidden messages have little effect on behavior outside the laboratory
(Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc, 1980; Rensink, 2004; Nelson, 2008; Radel, Sarrazin, Legrain, &
Gobancé, 2009; Loersch, Durso, & Petty, 2013).
Absolute thresholds are generally measured under incredibly controlled conditions in
situations that are optimal for sensitivity. Sometimes, we are more interested in how much
difference in stimuli is required to detect a difference between them. This is known as
the just noticeable difference (JND) or difference threshold. Unlike the absolute
threshold, the difference threshold changes depending on the stimulus intensity.
As an example, imagine yourself in a very dark movie theater. If an audience member
were to receive a text message on her cell phone, which caused her screen to light up,
chances are that many people would notice the change in illumination in the theater.
However, if the same thing happened in a brightly lit arena during a basketball game, very
few people would notice. The cell phone brightness does not change, but its ability to be
detected as a change in illumination varies dramatically between the two contexts. Ernst
Weber proposed this theory of change in difference threshold in the 1830s, and it has
become known as Weber's law: The difference threshold is a constant fraction of the
original stimulus, as the example illustrates.

2. PERCEPTION

While our sensory receptors are constantly collecting information from the environment,
it is ultimately how we interpret that information that affects how we interact with the
world. Perception refers to the way sensory information is organized, interpreted,
and consciously experienced. Perception involves both bottom-up and top-down
processing.

Ø Bottom-up processing refers to the fact that perceptions are built from sensory
input.

Ø On the other hand, how we interpret those sensations is influenced by our

available knowledge, our experiences, and our thoughts. This is called top-down
processing.
FACTORS AFFECTING PERCEPTION
Ø One way to think of this concept is that sensation is a physical process, whereas
perception is psychological. For example, upon walking into a kitchen and smelling the
scent of baking cinnamon rolls, the sensation is the scent receptors detecting the odor
of cinnamon, but the perception may be “yummy!” this smells like the bread Grandma
used to bake when the family gathered for holidays.
Ø Although our perceptions are built from sensations, not all sensations result in
perception. In fact, we often don't perceive stimuli that remain relatively constant
over prolonged periods of time. This is known as sensory adaptation. Imagine
entering a classroom with an old analog clock. Upon first entering the room, you
 can hear the ticking of the clock; as you begin to engage in conversation with
classmates or listen to your professor greet the class, you are no longer aware of
the ticking. The clock is still ticking, and that information is still affecting sensory
receptors of the auditory system. The fact that you no longer perceive the sound
demonstrates sensory adaptation and shows that while closely associated, sensation
and perception are different.
Ø There is another factor that affects sensation and perception: attention. Attention plays
a significant role in determining what is sensed versus what is perceived. Imagine you
are at a party full of music, chatter, and laughter. You get involved in an interesting
conversation with a friend, and you tune out all the background noise. If someone
interrupted you to ask what song had just finished playing, you would probably be
unable to answer that question.
Ø Motivation can also affect perception. Have you ever been expecting a really
important phone call and, while taking a shower, you think you hear the phone
ringing, only to discover that it is not? If so, then you have experienced how
motivation to detect a meaningful stimulus can shift our ability to discriminate
between a true sensory stimulus and background noise. The ability to identify a
stimulus when it is embedded in a distracting background is called signal
detection theory. This might also explain why a mother is awakened by a quiet
murmur from her baby but not by other sounds that occur while she is asleep.
Signal detection theory has practical applications, such as increasing air traffic
controller accuracy. Controllers need to be able to detect planes among many
signals (blips) that appear on the radar screen and follow those planes as they
move through the sky. In fact, the original work of the researcher who developed
signal detection theory was focused on improving the sensitivity of air traffic
controllers to plane blips (Swets, 1964).
Ø Our perceptions can also be affected by our beliefs, values, prejudices,
expectations, and life experiences. The shared experiences of people within a
given cultural context can have pronounced effects on perception. For example:
children described as thrill seekers are more likely to show taste preferences for
intense sour flavors (Liem, Westerbeek, Wolterink, Kok, & de Graaf, 2004), which
suggests that basic aspects of personality might affect perception. Furthermore,
individuals who hold positive attitudes toward reduced-fat foods are more likely to
 rate foods labeled as reduced fat as tasting better than people who have less positive
attitudes about these products (Aaron, Mela, & Evans, 1994).

GESTALT PRINCIPLES OF PERCEPTION

In the early part of the 20th century, Max Wertheimer published a paper demonstrating
that individuals perceived motion in rapidly flickering static images an insight that came to
him as he used a child's toy tachistoscope. Wertheimer, and his assistants Wolfgang Kohler and
Kurt Kofka, who later became his partners, believed that perception involved more than
simply combining sensory stimuli. This belief led to a new movement within the field of
psychology known as Gestalt psychology. The word gestalt literally means form or
pattern, but its use reflects the idea that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. In
other words, the brain creates a perception that is more than simply the sum of available
sensory inputs, and it does so in predictable ways. Gestalt psychologists translated these
predictable ways into principles by which we organize sensory information. As a result,
Gestalt psychology has been extremely influential in the area of sensation and perception
(Rock & Palmer, 1990).
PRINCIPLES:
1. One Gestalt principle is the figure-ground relationship. According to this
principle, we tend to segment our visual world into figure and ground. Figure is
the object or person that is the focus of the visual f i eld, while the ground is the
background. As our perception can vary tremendously, depending on what is
perceived as f i gure and what is perceived as ground. Presumably, our ability to
interpret sensory information depends on what we label as figure and what we
label as ground in any particular case, although this assumption has been called
into question (Peterson & Gibson, 1994; Vecera & O'Reilly, 1998).
Figure: The concept of figure-ground relationship explains why this image can be
perceived either as a vase or as a pair of faces.
2. Another Gestalt principle for organizing sensory stimuli into meaningful
perception is proximity. This principle asserts that things that are close to one
another tend to be grouped together.

Figure: The Gestalt principle of proximity suggests that you see:

(a) one block of dots on the left side and (b) three columns on the right side
 3. We might also use the principle of similarity to group things in our visual fields.
According to this principle, things that are alike tend to be grouped together. For
example, when watching a football game, we tend to group individuals based on the
colors of their uniforms. When watching an offensive drive, we can get a sense
of the two teams simply by grouping along this dimension.

Figure: When looking at this array of dots, we likely perceive alternating rows of colors. We
are grouping these dots according to the principle of similarity.
Two additional Gestalt principles are the law of continuity (or good continuation) and
closure.
4. The law of continuity suggests that we are more likely to perceive continuous,
smooth owing lines rather than jagged, broken lines.

Figure: Good continuation would suggest that we are more likely to perceive this as
two overlapping lines, rather than four lines meeting in the center.
 5. The principle of closure states that we organize our perceptions
into complete objects rather than as a series of parts.

Figure: Closure suggests that we will perceive a complete circle and

rectangle rather than a series of segments.

According to Gestalt theorists, pattern perception, or our ability to

discriminate among different figures and shapes, occurs by following the
principles described above. You probably feel fairly certain that your perception
accurately matches the real world, but this is not always the case. Our perceptions are
based on perceptual hypotheses: educated guesses that we make while interpreting
sensory information. These hypotheses are informed by a number of factors,
including our personalities, experiences, and expectations. We use these hypotheses
to generate our perceptual set. For instance, research has demonstrated that those
who are given verbal priming produce a biased interpretation of complex ambiguous
figures (Goolkasian & Woodbury, 2010).

Gestalt theorists have been incredibly influential in the areas of sensation and
perception. Gestalt principles such as figure-ground relationship, grouping by
proximity or similarity, the law of good continuation, and closure are all used to
help explain how we organize sensory information. Our perceptions are not
infallible, and they can be influenced by bias, prejudice, and other factors.