Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

Sensation:
The stimulation of sense organs is known as sensation.

Sensation begins with the impinging (striking, trespassing) of stimulus upon the receptor
cells of sensory organ.

There are five senses – sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.

Stimulus – is any passing source of physical energy that produces a response in a sense
organ.

Perception:
The sorting out, interpretation, analysis and integration of stimuli involving our sense
organs and brain.

The word perception means collection and receiving with the mind or senses.

What one perceives is a result of interplays between past experiences, one’s culture and
the interpretation of the perceived stimulus.

Sensation starts and followed by perception. We can easily differentiate both as sensation
is orgaism’s first encounter with a raw sensory stimulus while perception is the process to
collect, interpret and analyse that sensory information.

E.g. In a classroom bells rings. Everyone in the room hears the ringing sound (stimulus)
and this sensory information is received by our ears (sense organ) and it is known as
sensation. We interpret it and give meaning to that information that the class is over is
known as perception.

Our sense organs play a vital role in sensation and perception and they add colors in our
life. We can easily imagine if one of our sense organ is damaged what will be the
consequences.

E.g. Imagine you are unable to hear music, voices and laughter of people. You are unable
to smell or taste food, chocolates and even cannot taste any drink. You are unable to feel
touch on your skin. You are unable to see the colorful scenes and beauty of the world.

Stimulus:
The energy that produces a response in a sense organ.

We can interpret a wide variety of stimulus.

E.g. If we simply talk about touch. We can feel the vibration of a cell phone on our body,
temperature, hot cup of tea and cold ice. We can feel pain on our body. If we talk about
hearing, we can easily distinguish types of music, conversation, horn-honking of cars and
sound of a bomb blast.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

Stimulus must have a specific intensity or strength to activate a sense organ. It should
posses a certain amount of strength to be detected.

Absolute Thresholds: Detecting what’s Out There:

The smallest intensity of a stimulus that must be present for it to be detected.

E.g. We can easily see a light 30 miles away from us (sight). We can hear the voice of
foot steps 20 feet away from us (hearing). We can taste 1 tablespoon salt diluted in 10
liter water (taste). We can smell our favorite food when we are near to our home (smell).
We can feel smallest insect crawling on our body (touch).

Our sense organs have a limited absolute threshold towards stimulus because if we are
able to detect smallest stimulus from the environment it can create a problem for us in
maintaining attention.

E.g. If you are able to hear the knocking of molecules in the air what will be the result.
We will become highly sensitive towards the voices and we will be unable to maintain
attention towards specific stimulus.

In our environment there are some factors that can effect our sensation and perception.
Examples of these factors are: noise, fog, clouds, smoke and darkness.

E.g. If we are standing in a crowded place, due to noise we are unable to hear the voice of
our friend calling us for dinner. If we are sitting in a room filled with smoke we are
unable to see the picture hanging on the wall. We can’t taste a food properly if someone
sitting next to us is doing smoking.

Signal Detection Theory:

It seeks to explain the role of psychological factors that helps to make a judgment
whether the stimulus is present or absent.

Ability to differentiate between noise and signal.

People can make error in making judgments about stimulus. They say the stimulus is
present when it is not. The stimulus is absent when it exists.

According to this theory psychologists can understand how these decisions are based on
expectations and motivation of the observer and his psychological state (fatigue, tension)
and situation as well. They are trying to note the conditions that how the observer can
make accurate decision.
E.g. Radar researches indicated the fact that radar specialist sits all day keeping an eye on
the radar. He is unable to maintain attention to a single task for a longer period of time.
He may get bored and fatigued. This will result in that he will be unable to detect a signal
when it will be present.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

E.g. In some situations when there is high alert situations and radar specialist is very
attentive and sensitive towards signals. He may detect a bird as enemy missile. This can
be result in detecting a stimulus when it does not exist.

E.g. When an eye witness is asked to identify a culprit among lineup (expected criminals
standing in one line) of different criminals. He can make wrong decision in identifying
true culprit. The factor can be that he thinks I have to select at least one from the line.
They detect a stimulus when it does not exist.

Just Noticeable Differences:

The smallest detectable difference between two stimuli.

We can easily differentiate two stimuli when they differ in intensity.

E.g. You observe a light blinking. One bulb is smaller in size and has dim light whereas
the other bulb is bigger is size and has bright light. You will be able to detect the light of
bigger and brighter bulb.

Sensory Adaptation:
An adjustment in sensory capacity following prolonged (longer period of time) exposure
to stimuli.

When we are exposed to a stimulus after a certain period of time it decreases our
sensitivity towards that stimulus.

E.g. You enters in a room and you feel a strong smell of cigarette smoke. Someone was
doing smoking in that room and left before you entered. When you sit in that room after a
while you will feel less smell even the windows and door is closed and there is no way
that smell can get out of the room. Reason is you get adapted to that smell.

Vision: Shedding Light On The Eye:

An electromagnetic radiation wave is the stimulus known as light of which our eyes are
sensitive in responding. It can be measured in wavelengths which show its energy level.
A human eye will respond to wavelength from about 380-750 nm.

E.g. The eyes of many species perceive wavelengths different from the spectrum visible
to the human eye. Many insects, such as bees, can see light in the ultraviolet (light are
rays from the sun with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-
rays) which is useful for finding nectar in flowers. Eye helps the image to enter through
neurons that serves as messanger to the brain. The neurons takes the image which is then
formed in the retina. The analogy (tranfer of visual image from eye to the brain) is
completed.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

Structure of the Eye:

Cornea:
The clear outer part of the eye's focusing system
located at the front of the eye.

Fovea:
The center of the macula; gives the sharpest vision.

Iris:
The colored part of the eye that regulates the
amount of light entering the eye.

Lens:
A clear part of the eye behind the iris that helps to
focus light, or an image, on the retina.

Macula:
The small sensitive area of the retina that gives central vision. It is located in the center of
the retina and contains the fovea.

Optic Nerve:
A bundle of more than one million nerve fibers that carries visual messages from the
retina to the brain.

Pupil:
The opening at the center of the iris. The iris adjusts the size of the pupil and controls the
amount of light that can enter the eye.

Retina:
The light-sensitive tissue lining at the back of the eye. The retina converts light into
electrical impulses that are sent to the brain through the optic nerve.

Vitreous Gel:
A clear gel that fills the inside of the eye. Eye protection:
Your eyes sit in sockets within the bones of your skull (known as the orbits), and are
surrounded by fat, fibrous tissue and muscles that help protect them from damage. Your
eyes are also protected by your eyelids and eyelashes, which block out bright light and
help to keep out dust, dirt and other foreign objects.

Tears are produced by the lacrimal gland, located in the orbit just above the outside
corner of each eye. Tears are swept across the front of your eyes each time you blink, and
drain into ducts at the inner corners of the eyes. Tears not only lubricate the eyes, but also
work with your eyelids and eyelashes to protect against dirt and infection.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

Ray of light enters through cornea which is transparent and enters in pupil which is dark
hole in the center of iris the colored part of the eye ranges from blue to brown. Pupil
adjusted its size according to the amount of the light.

E.g. If the light is dim the pupil opens more in order to allow more light to pass through
it. When light is bright it closes a bit to allow less light to enter.

The light from pupil then enters in lens, located behind pupil. The lens also changes it
shape to adjust light.

E.g. To see distant image lens gets flat in shape. The muscles located near lens and which
supports lens gets relax. Near images can be seen when the lens gets rounded in shape
and the muscles gets contracted.

In the end the image goes to retina. Here the electromagnetic wavelength is converted
into meaningful image that is useful for the brain. The image formed is upside down but
the brain interprets it as its original shape.

Retina is located in the back of eyeball. In retina there are two types of light-sensitive
receptors cells known as rods and cones. Rods are long and cylindrical in shape whereas
cones are short and thick. Cones are located near fovea which is sensitive region. Rods
are located far from fovea.

Both play different roles in vision. Cones are active in bright light situations and colors.
Active during day vision. Rods are active in dim light situations and not sensitive to
colors. Active during night vision.

Adaptation: From Light: to Dark:

A heightened sensitivity to light that results from being in dim light.

E.g. You are going to watch a movie at noon when the sunlight is on peak. You enter in
cinema where the lights are off and only dim light of screen can be seen. You will feel
difficulty in finding your seat and later after a while you are able to see in dark.

This dark adaptation occurs as a result of chemical composition of rods and cones. Cones
get adapted in few seconds but rods take thirty minutes to gets adapted to the
environment. When rods and cones work jointly they adapt to the environment in about
half an hour.

Color Vision and Color Blindness: The 7 – Million – Color Spectrum

Color-blindness: Deficiency of color vision.

A person with normal color vision is capable of differentiating 7 million colors. People
can distinguish a vast variety of colors but there are some people who have limited ability
to perceive colors. They are known as color-blind.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

Most of the color-blind people perceive the world very dull. Usually they the common
form of color blindness is when people perceive all red and green colors as yellow.
Another one is yellow-blue blindness in which people cannot differentiate between
yellow and blue. An extreme form of color-blindness exists in which a person perceives
no color at all.

E.g. In first type people are unable to perceive objects with red color and green. They
only perceive yellow color. Traffic signal light having three different colors red, green
and yellow, all are perceived as yellow. They can be a victim of severe accident due to
their weakness. In second type people are unable to differentiate yellow and blue color.
The third type who are unable to perceive any color. Their life is colorless as they are
watching black and white television.

According to trichromatic theory of color vision which suggest that there are three kinds
of cones present in retina which are able to perceive colors like blue-violet, green and
yellow-red.

E.g. When we perceive any object having blue, red or green color. That specific cone is
triggered or activated and rest cones are less activated.

The main cause of color blindness is the malfunction (no function or wrong function) of
the three cones.

According to opponent-process theory of color vision which suggests that there is

receptor cells linked in pairs and they work opposite to each other. There is a visual
system which interprets the information received by cones and rods into different colors.
Visual system is unable to differentiate different responses of the three cones.
The opponent color theory suggests that there are three opponent channels: red versus
green, blue versus yellow, and black versus white. Responses to one color of an opponent
channel are antagonistic (against each other) to those to the other color.

E.g. When we see an object that contain blue and yellow color, but blue is more than
yellow, the cone that is active to blue-yellow color gets triggered and the cone of blue
will be triggered more and the yellow cone will be less active and we will perceive blue
color more actively.

There is a phenomenon known as afterimage which shows that when we see an object
with a specific color and when the see in different direction we see image of different
color than the original color.

When you are watching an object containing yellow, in the pairing of yellow-blue cones,
the yellow cone will be activated for longer and the blue cone will be less active. But
when you see on plane surface you will see patches of blue because yellow cone were
fatigued of continued staring and they are unable to respond quickly on white surface and
blue cone respond quickly because the blue cone was doing rest.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

E.g. If you stare an object of red color or simply a red spot you will see patches of green
color afterwards when the object or spot disappears.

Hearing and the Other Senses:

The basic sensory process centered in the ear: the sense of motion and balance. This
sense allows the person to stand up rite, maintain balance without falling. The process by
which sounds are translated into meaningful form, maintaining balance and motion is the
main functions of the ear.

Sensing Sound:
Sound is produced by the movement of air molecules brought about by the vibration of
an object.

Structure of the Ear:

Outer Ear
The outer ear collects sound waves, and
find out the source of sound which travel
down the auditory canal and vibrate the
eardrum. It also changes the frequency
of the sound. The outer ear leads into the
ear canal, which is about one inch long
in adults and is closed at the inner end
by the eardrum. The eardrum is a thin
fibrous circular membrane covered with
a thin layer of skin. It vibrates in
response to changes in air pressure that
constitute sound. The eardrum separates
the outer from the middle ear.

Middle Ear
Eardrum vibrations move three bones in the middle ear which are named according to
their shapes: the hammer (maleous), anvil (incus), and stirrup (stapes). They form a chain
connecting the inner face of the eardrum to a membrane called the oval window. The oval
window covers the opening to the inner ear.

Inner Ear
The inner ear is composed of two general parts: the cochlea and the semicircular canals.
The cochlea is a spiral passage that looks like a tiny snail shell. It is filled with fluid, and
the inner surface is lined with nerve endings. These are highly sensitive to vibrations of
fluid. They are part of neurons that form the auditory nerve, which leads to the brain. The
semicircular canals consist of three loop-shaped tubes. There are hair cells in the basilar
membrane in which the vibration enters the cochlea and message is transmitted to brain.
The tubes function in balance.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

Balance: The Ups and Downs of Life:

The semi circular canals of the inner ear consist of three tubes containing liquid. We
move our body forward, backward, upward or downward is sensed by the tiny motion-
sensitive crystals known as otoliths present in semi circular canals. When we move these
crystals also move and send message to the brain.

Smell:
Our life will be less interesting if we are unable to smell flowers, perfumes and food.
Animals have a strong ability to detect odors and their major part of the brain is involved
in it then humans. We are able to differentiate 10 thousand smells. We can easily
remember smells and events related to the smells.
Research showed that women have a better sense of smell than men. In one research
students were blindfolded and are asked to smell the hands and identify the gender. They
successfully identified male and female. In another research participants were asked to
identify gender by smelling the breath. They identified male and female better.

We smell when the molecules of any object enter the nasal passage and meet olfactory
cells which are the receptors cell of the nose. There are more than 1 thousand different
types of receptors cells which can easily detect different types of odors. When new smell
enters the receptors sends signal to the brain which than differentiate the smell.

Taste:
Researchers believe that there are four basic
receptor cells which can differentiate sweet, sour,
salty or bitter flavors. These receptor cells are
located in taste buds which are present in tongue.

There are individual differences in sense of taste

which has genetic influence. Some people are
highly sensitive about taste known as supertasters
and some people are less sensitive about taste
known as nontasters. The supertasters have more
receptors cells present all over their tongue to
detect taste.

E.g. Supertasters will taste the food and find it more delicious, spicy, sweet, salty and
bitter because they have strong tendency to taste. They are easily satisfied with the taste.
On the other hand nontasters are hard to satisfy because they find food less delicious,
spicy, salty and sweet because they have weak tendency towards taste.

The Skin Senses: Touch, Pressure, Temperature and Pain:

Skin can perceive the senses that include touch, pressure, temperature and pain. Some
people say pain should not exist. But due to survival point of view and to avoid severe
damage caused by an accident can be avoided by feeling pain.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

E.g. You are looking towards your friend and at the same time you touched a frying pan
which is very hot. If you don’t feel pain there are chances you will get severely burned.
Pain will help you to avoid touching the hot pan.
There are receptor cells located all over you skin that help us to detect the stimulus. The
receptor cell are located more in fingertips which is highly sensitive to touch and the
receptors cells in back are less because back is less sensitive to touch.

Pain is dependent on our moods, emotions and thoughts.

E.g. A mother who is delivering a baby may feel less pain when she thinks of her child
coming in this world. A person who is participating in wrestling or boxing sports will feel
less pain when he will think if he wins he will get a prize. Muslims fast and bear the pain
of hunger and thirst because they think their efforts will be rewarded.

Gate-Control Theory of Pain:

This theory suggests that receptor cells are attached to specific areas of the brain related
to pain.

When we have injury on the body the receptors are activated and gate of brain is opened
and we feel the pain. When the pain is over the gate to the brain is closed and we do not
fell pain. Sometime we rub the skin to reduce pain.

There are psychological factor also related to reducing pain.

E.g. Soldiers before dying in war feel no pain because they are thinking they will be alive
after death.

There are some cultural differences also in feeling pain.

E.g. There are many traditions in some countries where people are involved in rituals
where they do body piercing with knives and blades etc.

Perceptual Organization:
Sensation and perception are virtually impossible to separate, because they are part of one
continuous process.

Our sense organs translate physical energy from the environment into electrical impulses
processed by the brain.

For example, light, in the form of electromagnetic radiation, causes receptor cells in our
eyes to activate and send signals to the brain. But we do not understand these signals as
pure energy. The process of perception allows us to interpret them as objects, events,
people, and situations.

Figure-Ground Perception:
The ability to differentiate visually between an object and its background.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

A person's ability to separate an object from its surrounding visual field is referred to as
figure-ground perception. The object that a person focuses on is called the figure;
everything else is referred to as background, or simply ground.

Feature Analysis: Focusing on the Parts of the Whole:

This approach indicates that we perceive shape of objects by the elements and then
combining them.

E.g. Letter R will be perceived as one straight line, semi-circle and one short line. When
the features are combined it will make letter R.

P
R R R
T
Psychologist Anne Treisman suggests that perception can be understood in term of two-
stage process:

 Pre-attentive stage: we focus on physical features of object with little or no

conscious effort.
E.g. We perceive the size, color, shape, orientation and direction of the object.

 Focused-attention stage: we pay attention to particular features of an object with

more conscious effort.
E.g. We perceive the main features of the object separately.

E.g. If there are two similar pictures and you are asked to differentiate them. First you
will do pre-attentive analysis of the picture and say both are same because both have
same color, texture, shape and size. Later when you do focused-attention analysis and
carefully look at the features you will come to know both are different.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

Take a look in these four chairs. It seems all the four chairs are similar but if you look at
them carefully you will find the difference. One chair is little different then the other
four.

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processing:

Top-Down Processing indicates that perception is guided by higher-level of knowledge,
experience, expectation and motivation.

E.g. __sychology – P sychology

It is the __cienti__ic st__dy of __ognitio_ and b__havi__r

It is the s cienti f ic st u dy of c ognitio n and b e havi o r

You were able to read the missing words because you have knowledge and experience
about the sentence.

E.g. A B C D E F
10 11 12 13 14
You will perceive the letter B as 13 if it is written between the digits. Because of you
expectations and understanding the situation or context.

E.g. If you see a tree then you will combine all trees to make a forest.

Bottom-Up Processing indicates that perception consists of recognizing and processing

information about individual components of the object.

E.g. We analyze the separate features of the letters to recognize the word. If you see a
forest you will carefully analyze each tree.

Perceptual Constancy:
A phenomenon in which physical objects are perceived as consistent (unchangeable)
despite of changing in their appearance or physical environment.

E.g. You see a plane flying high in the sky. It will be much smaller in size but you will be
able to imagine the real size of the plane because you have seen it with less distance. It
will appear smaller because of distance as the plane is far away from you.

Depth Perception:
When we perceive any image on retina it is 2-D. But the world around us is 3-D.

This ability to change 2-D image to 3-D image is known as depth perception in which we
perceive distance of the object.

We have two eyes and there is distance between the two ayes that’s why we perceive one
image slightly different when it reaches retina. The brain combines the two images to
form one same image.

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Chapter: 2 Sensation and Perception Course: Introduction to Psychology

Binocular disparity helps us to perceive the distance of an object from us.

E.g. Hold a pencil in your hand up to the level of you eyes. Close right eye and see the
pencil and then close left eye and see the pencil. You will notice that the pencil will
change its place. But when you see the pencil with both eyes you will see it on same
position. You will also see more disparity when you move your pencil closer to you and
less disparity when the pencil is far from you.

Motion Perception:
It allows a baseball player to calculate the speed of a ball with accuracy. Automobile
drivers rely on motion perception to judge the speeds of other cars and avoid collisions.

Initially, you might think that you perceive motion when an object’s image moves. In
fact, that is what occurs if you are staring straight ahead and a person walks in front of
you.

You are almost always in motion. As you walk along a path, or simply move your head
or your eyes, images from many stationary objects move around on your retina. How
does your brain know which movement on the retina is due to your own motion and
which is due to motion in the world?

One explanation of motion perception is when we walk around or move our head in a
particular way we say such movement on the retina is due to our own bodily motion and
perceive the objects as stationary.

In contrast, when we are not moving and the image of an object is moving on our retina,
we perceive that object as moving.

People may perceive motion when none actually exists. For example, motion pictures are
really a series of slightly different still pictures flashed on a screen at a rate of 24 pictures,
or frames, per second. From this rapid succession of still images, our brain perceives
motion in the picture.

Perceptual Illusions:
False perception is known as illusion.

Subliminal Perception:
The perception of messages about which we have no awareness.

E.g. You are viewing television and suddenly an advertisement of cigarette brand is
shown between the show. Usually these ads are made in which they show a person who is
very adventurous and climbing mountains and full of energy, passion and health. You are
so much involved in the glamorous ad that you are unable to read the note which appears
in the end of ad for a second that smoking in injurious to health. You are unable to give
attention to that message due to limited time but it was present in you mind.

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