Sensation & Perception

    Cards (11)

    • Sensation:
      the process by which our sensory receptors and sense organs (eyes, ears, nose,
      tongue and skin) detect and respond to sensory information that stimulates them (e.g. light, air
      vibrations, odours, and so on) and how those responses are transmitted to the brain
    • Perception:
      the process by which we give meaning to
      sensory information. This processing results in the
      conscious experience of our external (and internal)
      environments.
    • The three stages of perception are Selection, Organisation and Interpretation
    • Selection:
      The process of attending to certain
      sensory stimuli, or features of
      certain stimuli, and excluding others.
    • Organisation:
      the process of regrouping selected
      features of sensory stimuli in order
      for them to be cohesively arranged
    • Interpretation:
      the process of understanding and
      assigning meaning to sensory
      information in order to understand it.
    • Reception: the process of detecting and responding to incoming sensory information.
    • Receptive field: the area of space in which a receptor can respond to a
      stimulus.
    • Transduction: the process by which the receptors change the
      energy of the detected sensory information into a form which can
      travel along neural pathways to the brain as action potentials
      (which are also called neural impulses).
    • Transmission: the process of sending the sensory information (as action potentials) to relevant areas of the brain via the thalamus (except information for smell which bypasses the thalamus).
    • Interpretation: the process in which incoming sensory information is given meaning so that it can be understood.
    See similar decks