Sensation and Perception

Sensation – the detection of external stimuli, responses to the stimuli, and transmission of responses to
brain

- transduction: process by which sensory information from receptors get translated into neural
impulses
 sensory information (except smell) sent to thalamus, relayed to primary sensory cortex in
parietal lobe
- sensory threshold: our sensory systems are developed to detect change rather than continuity
 absolute threshold: the minimum intensity of stimulation to experience a sensation
 difference threshold: the just noticeable difference between two stimuli (minimum to
notice change)
- sensory adaptation: the cessation of sensory responses after continued stimulation (ex. touch,
wetness, sour, light)
- contralateral organization: senses from one side of the body are processed by the hemisphere on
the other side

Gustation (Taste):

- stimuli: chemical substances from food that dissolve in saliva

- receptors: taste receptors are found in taste buds (on papillae), every taste is a mix of the 5 basic
flavours
- orbitofrontal cortex (OFC): receives sensory info from smell, taste, vision → perception of
flavour

Olfaction (Smell):

- stimuli: chemicals that dissolve in fluid on mucous membranes of nose

- receptors: smell receptors on the olfactory epithelium (mucosa) transmit information to olfactory
bulb
- olfaction test: we’re good at differentiating good and bad smells, but not specifying odors from
scent alone

Somatosensation (Touch):

- stimuli: mechanical distortion, pressure, temperature, pain

- receptors: mechanoreceptors on the skin

Audition (Hearing):

- stimuli: vibrations of air molecules

- receptors: mechanoreceptors in the cochlea (basilar membrane contains organ of Corti)

Vision (Sight):

- stimuli: light
 - receptors: photoreceptors: rod cells detect dim-light on retina, cone cells detect color and fine
details on fovea
 accommodation: ciliary muscles change the shape of the lens to focus on different
distances

- dorsal stream: “where”, spatial perception

- ventral stream: “what”, recognition of objects
 agnosia: can’t name objects, prosopagnosia: can’t identify faces

Nociception (Pain):

- stimuli: mechanical, thermal, chemical damage

- receptors: nociceptors → myelinated (A delta fibres) = immediate pain, non-myelinated (C fibres)
= steady pain

The Cortical Sensory Cortex and Motor Homunculi:

- somatotopic organization: connected parts of the body are processed beside each other in the
sensory cortex
- more sensitive regions have more cortical area devoted to them (ex. hands, tongue, face)

Perception – the processing and organizing of sensory signals in the brain → conscious experience of the
world!

1. Gate Control Theory of Pain: for nociceptors response to be received, the neural ‘gate’ in the
spinal cord must be open
- explains differences in pain perception at different times (ex. don’t feel pain when in shock)
- large sensory overload can also block pain (ex. rubbing toe after you stub it)

2. Color Perception: many theories exist as to how our brains perceive color
i) trichromatic theory: color = the ratio of activation of 3 cone types (RBG), cannot explain after-
images
ii) opponent process theory: ganglion cells with opposing color receptors, one stimulated while other
inhibited

3. Gestalt Principles of Perceptual Organization: how we organize elements into groups to perceive a
unified whole
- figure-ground relationship: whatever’s not in the figure is assigned as background
- proximity: closer objects are grouped together
- similarity: similar objects are grouped together
- good continuation: intersecting lines are continuous and not randomly changing direction
- closure: we complete figures that have gaps in them
- illusory contours: we perceive contours, even when they don’t exist
4. Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Processing:
- bottom-up processing: info is sent from lower-level processing to higher-level processing areas
(basic perception)
- top-down processing: info from higher-level areas needed to interpret sensory information
(complex perception)

5. Depth Perception: ability to use the two-dimensional image projected on the retina to perceive
three dimensions
- binocular disparity: each eye sees own image, brain uses both images to compute distances (ie.
sausage finger)
- occlusion: we know that objects behind other objects continue even though we cannot see them
- relative size: things that are father away only appear to look smaller
- familiar size: we know relative sizes of everyday objects (ex. size of a person compared to a car)
- linear perspective: when parallel lines converge, objects farther away seem much bigger
- texture gradient: details smooth out over distances (ex. ripples seem to disappear)

6. Motion Parallax: objects farther away appear to move slower than closer objects