Sensation & Perception

• 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.