sensation and perception conclusion essay

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Example Of Sensation And Perception Essay

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Psychology , Development , Perception , Information , Human , Skin , Thinking , Brain

Words: 1400

Published: 01/28/2020

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In many fields of study on human anatomy and biological responses, most people have made it a task of psychologists to keenly engage in research on matters pertaining to brain or mental operations. This was expected to be more in anatomy and philosophy but these two disciplines moved this to psychology. Sensation and perception are two very closely intertwined aspects in human life and behavioral studies. To begin with, sensation can be defined as the process of receiving stimuli from the environment. From a simpler perspective, a change in temperature creates a sensation through the skin which is interpreted by the brain using the aspect of perception. From a linguistics point of view, it can be defined as the unelaborated elementary awareness of stimulation. This turns back to the initial definition of sensation being reception of a stimulus by an organism. The other aspect is perception. From a philosophical perspective, perception involves the brain where it is defined as a mental process of coming up with useful information on the data received by sensation. This can be further elaborated to claim that perception involves synthesis or processing of data by the brain to come up with a conclusion on a sensed aspect. From the above elaborations, it is clear that perception relies almost solely on sensation for data to be processed while sensation depends on a similar magnitude on perception to be effective. It is therefore prudent and true for me to conclude that sensation and perception are very important stages in processing of human or other animal senses (Kalat, 2011). For us to have a very appropriate and vivid illustration of these two aspects of mind or thought, let us view them as thought pieces. Taking them as thought pieces allows us to treat each as an independent entity whereby it can stand alone as a piece that is controlled independent of the other. Taking a look at sensation as an independent thought piece, it is valid to claim that to sensation uses both the CNS and the process of thinking. Once the sense receives a stimulus, it relays the information about it to the brain. The brain initiates a process of thinking whereby it processes the stimulus and initiates a process of thinking whereby a thought about the necessary step to take is created. This is in response to another standalone thought piece or process known as perception. This indicates that sensation can be taken as piece thought that deals with reception and relaying of stimuli to the brains. The other thought piece takes the received stimuli and decodes it according to certain pre-conceived factors about the stimuli. After successful decoding, the perception also assesses the situation and as a though piece helps deduce the best response to the stimuli (Kalat, 2011). In my paper, my main concept is sensation. This is mainly because it is the concept that explains fully on how we as human beings perceive any stimuli in the environment and makes us very much responsive to the external world. As a matter of fact, it helps us detect any changes thus has the ability to escape from what would have previously harmed us. Sensation as earlier described deals with detection. This is the main aspect in psychology that helps the brains to develop some response tables and strategies associated with the detected stimuli. For example, a person whose skin does not sense any changes to temperature cannot have the brain develops response structures on changes to temperature. This though piece would then completely disable the whole thought on dealing with changes in the atmosphere. Therefore, absence of this piece would present a very big problem to the person (Heffner, 2009). In my personal experience, the process of sensation is very important. It can help a person respond appropriately to any changes. As an example, about two years ago, I went out for bike riding with my friends. While out in the field, I saw one of the competitors veer into my lane. It was my sensation piece that made me detect of an impending collision that would see both of us out of the race or even injured. Still on the same incident, my other sense on sight made me detect an alternative instead of moving directly into a crash with the competitor. It triggered a response whereby I had to respond after perception and other decision making thought pieces played their roles. Learning from events and occurrences like these in my life, I have developed mixed feelings about this piece of thought. To begin with, I have developed a strong positive feeling about it. This is mainly due to the potential of the feeling that makes me think it is very important. To begin with, sensation helps a person to learn of the immediate environment in which he/she is. This helps a lot in making that person know how to respond and keep safe in the environment. For example, it is the sensation from the skin that helps a person to detect adverse weather on top of vision. This is a very important aspect since adverse weather is lethal to the human and other organisms’ bodies. The other advantage is the ability to clearly distinguish a stimulus. Under this topic, I can claim that sensation helps human beings and other organisms know where to go at what time and how to react to which situations. Take for example a person sees an overcoming vehicle and is staggering at the middle of the road. This person is most likely to take to one side and the driver knows how to react. The driver also knows how to judge the distance which is also an aspect highly affected by sensation and judgment (perception) (Heffner, 2009). Another advantage of this concept is the ability of a sensation organ to develop a pre-conception guiding the brain in its decision making to arrive at the best response mechanism. For example, when a child is left exposed to a source of infrared, the skin senses the heat and the child drifts away from the fire. If that child is not exposed to such a stimulus, he/she might have no pre-conception on how to deal with it later making the brain to have excess tasks while dealing with it once it occurs. A look in philosophy exposes that sensation is very important when dealing with the society. If one does not express any feelings or emotions, he/she is viewed as deviant from the normality. This is supported by the fact that philosophy acknowledges that sensation is a very important aspect in human thinking process. It acts as a data collection mechanism and relays the collected information to the brain for thinking to take place. From a moral perspective, thinking is highly guided by sensation. Without any sensation, deviance sets in and forces a person to be viewed as morally deficient (Kalat, 2011). However, there is also a negative aspect of sensation. For example, sensation can make a person to overestimate or underestimate a situation. For example, if a person is not exposed to bright light, the brain and other aspects involved in thoughts are not prepared for such a scenario thus the person can easily get harmed when exposed to such great light. This is the same to other sensation organs. Also, the main task of sensation is to detect. Getting used to a certain stimulus may tend to make the body less reactive to the stimulus causing gradual destruction of the sensation organ by the stimuli. This can be experienced in people whole have got their eyes continually exposed to bright light which tends to destroy the eyes. In simple terms, excessive sensation tends to reduce sensitivity of the sensors and in the very end causes harm to the organs and human body systems as a whole (Heffner, 2009). In conclusion, perception and sensation are very important aspects in human life. They help in thinking whereby they provide information and processing of the information so as to evoke proper response. This is an indication that sensation and perception are two very important aspects on human psychology that must be inculcated correctly in a person.

Kalat, J. W. 2011. Introduction to psychology, 9th edition, Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth Publishing Company Heffner D 2009, Psychology 101, retrieved from http://allpsych.com/psychology101/index.html

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Home — Essay Samples — Psychology — Perception — Sensation and Perception: World of Human Sensory Experience

Sensation and Perception: World of Human Sensory Experience

Categories: Perception

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Words: 737 |

Published: Sep 12, 2023

Words: 737 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Understanding sensation, perception: making sense of sensation, the role of attention, perceptual illusions: when perception deceives, the influence of experience and culture, conclusion: the complex interplay of sensation and perception.

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The Link Between Sensation and Perception

Sensation and perception are two distinct processes that are closely linked. The senses constitute the stimuli that the body’s sensory receptors detect from the surrounding environment. On the other hand, perception describes a mental process where the perceived cues are selected, organized, and interpreted into meaningful patterns (Byrne, 2018). Although people may have the same senses about a particular issue, their perceptions may vary because the brain interprets the stimuli differently depending on individuals’ learning, memory, emotions, and expectations.

Sensation refers to a physical process whereby the human body learns and understands the surrounding environment. It leverages sensory receptors which are found in specialized organs including the mouth, ears, eyes, nose, and skin (Hearst, 2019). These specialized neurons correspond to the five known senses – vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. The sensory receptors receive different kinds of stimuli from a range of sources and transform them into the electrochemical signals of the nervous system (Byrne, 2018). Thus, sensation helps people learn about the world around them, as well as the condition of the internal body system.

Perception is a psychological process that involves interpreting the information collected from the environment. The interpretation affects the way people interact with the world around them. The process of perception involves both bottom-up and top-down factors (Goldstein & Brockmole, 2016). The bottom-up approach makes use of the fact that perception depends on the sensory system. A top-down process, on the other hand, involves the interpretation of the sensations concerning the available knowledge, experience, and thoughts (Byrne, 2018). It starts with the most general details and narrows toward the most specific ones.

Although sensation and perception are two different processes, they depend on each other and the method of feeling leads to perception. During sensation, a receptor is activated at the level of the stimulus. During perception, the stimuli are processed into meaning patterns that involve awareness (Dretske, 2015). Consequently, perception depends on the body’s senses; however, the body does not perceive all sensations. This kind of sensory is known as sensory adaptation. Some factors affect both perception and sensation, and they include attention, which plays an essential role in what is sensed and what is perceived. Perceptions are also affected by several factors such as personal beliefs, cultural norms and values, and past experiences (Goldstein & Brockmole, 2016). Therefore, people perceive things in different ways based on many personal factors.

One of the most controversial experiences that human beings believe in through the various senses is reality. Many people hold a unique set of beliefs that significantly influence the way they think and feel about themselves, others, and the world around them. What a person believes can change his or her reality. That is, what an individual believes may eventually turn out to be the truth (Dretske, 2015). From the judgment made when crossing a road to trusting the existence of some microscopic items, it is believed to be a reality, but that is far from the truth (Byrne, 2018). Research shows that human beings are only capable of sensing just enough to make them survive (Goldstein & Brockmole, 2016). Such sensations translate to conclusions about the real world around us, and this constitutes perceptual experiences.

Moreover, the perceptual experience determines the interpretation of the state of the world around us. According to Dretske (2015), this determination is only made possible by the fact the brain intends to know only those things that are within the surrounding environment. In some circumstances, some of the inferences drawn by the mind are incorrect. Such inaccuracies are due to anomalies in human perceptual experiences. We can, therefore, record these anomalies to determine the perceptual apparatus rather than relying entirely on reality (Goldstein & Brockmole, 2016). Sometimes errors experienced in making judgments can also be persistent and vary from person to person. Such mistakes are always termed illusions and often influence how people make decisions on the various aspects of life. Some experiences do not positively give a reasonable interpretation of real life, but they play a vital role in how people make resolutions in the world.

Each individual has his or her way of perceiving issues. The sensation towards a given factor or change in the surrounding may have similar effects on people but each one’s perception will differ (Dretske, 2015). The distinctions in perceptions are mostly brought by the kind of knowledge, emotions, and experiences about the issue. One of the habits I would not say I like to experience is living together with people who smoke and drink excessively. The smell of alcohol and the effect of smoke from cigarettes make me uncomfortable. When I interact with such individuals, the only option I may have is to avoid them. Behaving so leads to prejudice and discrimination against those who have chosen to live the way they like.

Morality is also another aspect of life that is viewed from different perspectives. A particular society may consider a given habit normal, but another one may see it as an act of inhumanity and against its norms and values (Dretske, 2015; Goldstein & Brockmole, 2016). Some communities are intolerant to certain types of behaviors such as same-sex relationships. Other advanced societies may look at it as a standard and allow their members to engage in any relationship they like. Interacting with such individuals may be a challenging task to me so I often choose to avoid them. Other people in the same society may consider it an act of discrimination and prejudice.

Public interactions and communications are some of the situations that require the highest-level decency. According to Goldstein and Brockmole (2016), this cleanliness should range from the body to the language used in such fora. If I am in such a function and one of the attendees happens to be having a smelling body or has bad breath, then I would not be able to stay there. In such circumstances, many people will look at me as being discriminatory. People perceive situations in life differently and never feel that their actions might hurt others.

In conclusion, sensation and perception are two important processes that enable humans to learn and understand the world around them. They occur simultaneously as sensory receptors detect stimuli from different sources, which are then organized, interpreted, and experienced consciously during the perception process. However, although people experience the same senses towards given stimuli, their perception of the same phenomenon may differ considerably. Prior experiences and personal values and beliefs influence how we interpret various issues in the world. Such incidents include looking at everything being a reality and other anomalies that may distort the real happenings in the environment around.

Byrne, A. (2018). Perception and sensation . Oxford University Press.

Dretske, F. (2015). Perception versus conception: The goldilocks test. In J. Zeimbekis & A. Raftopoulos (Eds.), The Cognitive penetrability of perception: New philosophical perspectives (pp. 163–173). Oxford University Press.

Goldstein, E. B., & Brockmole, J. (2016). Sensation and perception (10 th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Hearst, E. (Ed.). (2019). The first century of experimental psychology . Routledge.

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Chapter 4: Sensation and Perception

Sensation and perception.

Sensation and perception are two separate processes that are very closely related. Sensation is input about the physical world obtained by our sensory receptors, and perception is the process by which the brain selects, organizes, and interprets these sensations. In other words, senses are the physiological basis of perception. Perception of the same senses may vary from one person to another because each person’s brain interprets stimuli differently based on that individual’s learning, memory, emotions, and expectations.

Video 1. Sensation and Perception explains the differences between these two processes.

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 (somatosensation). It turns out that this notion of five senses is oversimplified. We also have sensory systems that provide information about balance (the vestibular sense), body position and movement (proprioception and kinesthesia), pain (nociception), and temperature (thermoception).

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).

Video 2. Absolute Threshold of Sensation

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. Therefore, the message is sensed, but for whatever reason, it has not been selected for processing in working or short-term memory. 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).

Dig Deeper: Unconscious Perception

Male professor with a graying beard writing on a whiteboard, wearing a sweater and glasses.

Figure 2 . Priming can be used to improve intellectual test performance. Research subjects primed with the stereotype of a professor – a sort of intellectual role model – outperformed those primed with an anti-intellectual stereotype. [Photo: Jeremy Wilburn]

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. It is the idea that bigger stimuli require larger differences to be noticed. For example, it will be much harder for your friend to reliably tell the difference between 10 and 11 lbs. (or 5 versus 5.5 kg) than it is for 1 and 2 lbs.

Video 3. Weber’s Law and Thresholds

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

Video 4. Bottom-up versus Top-down Processing.

Look at the shape in Figure 3 below. Seen alone, your brain engages in bottom-up processing. There are two thick vertical lines and three thin horizontal lines. There is no context to give it a specific meaning, so there is no top-down processing involved.

text or image of a thick vertical line and three thin horizontal lines, then another thick vertical line.

Figure 3 . What is this image? Without any context, you must use bottom-up processing.

Now, look at the same shape in two different contexts. Surrounded by sequential letters, your brain expects the shape to be a letter and to complete the sequence. In that context, you perceive the lines to form the shape of the letter “B.”

The letter A, then the same shape from before that now appears to be a B, then followed by the letter C.

Figure 4 . With top-down processing, you use context to give meaning to this image.

Surrounded by numbers, the same shape now looks like the number “13.”

The number 12, then the same shape from before that now appears to be a 13, then followed by the number 14.

Figure 5 . With top-down processing, you use context to give meaning to this image.

When given a context, your perception is driven by your cognitive expectations. Now you are processing the shape in a top-down fashion.

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 “Mmm, this smells like the bread Grandma used to bake when the family gathered for holidays.”

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.

Attention and Perception

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.

One experiment that demonstrates this phenomenon of inattentional blindness asked participants to observe images moving across a computer screen. They were instructed to focus on either white or black objects, disregarding the other color. When a red cross passed across the screen, about one-third of subjects did not notice it (Most, Simons, Scholl, & Chabris, 2000).

Link to Learning

Video 5. Test your perceptual abilities.

A photograph shows a person staring at a screen that displays one red cross toward the left side and numerous black and white shapes all over.

Figure 6 . Nearly one third of participants in a study did not notice that a red cross passed on the screen because their attention was focused on the black or white figures. (credit: Cory Zanker)

Motivations, Expectations, and Perception

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).

Video 6. Signal Detection Theory.

Our perceptions can also be affected by our beliefs, values, prejudices, expectations, and life experiences. As you will see later in this module, individuals who are deprived of the experience of binocular vision during critical periods of development have trouble perceiving depth (Fawcett, Wang, & Birch, 2005). The shared experiences of people within a given cultural context can have pronounced effects on perception. For example, Marshall Segall, Donald Campbell, and Melville Herskovits (1963) published the results of a multinational study in which they demonstrated that individuals from Western cultures were more prone to experience certain types of visual illusions than individuals from non-Western cultures, and vice versa. One such illusion that Westerners were more likely to experience was the Müller-Lyer illusion: the lines appear to be different lengths, but they are actually the same length.

Two vertical lines are shown on the left in (a). They each have V–shaped brackets on their ends, but one line has the brackets angled toward its center, and the other has the brackets angled away from its center. The lines are the same length, but the second line appears longer due to the orientation of the brackets on its endpoints. To the right of these lines is a two-dimensional drawing of walls meeting at 90-degree angles. Within this drawing are 2 lines which are the same length, but appear different lengths. Because one line is bordering a window on a wall that has the appearance of being farther away from the perspective of the viewer, it appears shorter than the other line which marks the 90 degree angle where the facing wall appears closer to the viewer’s perspective point.

Figure 7 . In the Müller-Lyer illusion, lines appear to be different lengths although they are identical. (a) Arrows at the ends of lines may make the line on the right appear longer, although the lines are the same length. (b) When applied to a three-dimensional image, the line on the right again may appear longer although both black lines are the same length.

These perceptual differences were consistent with differences in the types of environmental features experienced on a regular basis by people in a given cultural context. People in Western cultures, for example, have a perceptual context of buildings with straight lines, what Segall’s study called a carpentered world (Segall et al., 1966). In contrast, people from certain non-Western cultures with an uncarpentered view, such as the Zulu of South Africa, whose villages are made up of round huts arranged in circles, are less susceptible to this illusion (Segall et al., 1999). It is not just vision that is affected by cultural factors. Indeed, research has demonstrated that the ability to identify an odor and rate its pleasantness and its intensity, varies cross-culturally (Ayabe-Kanamura, Saito, Distel, Martínez-Gómez, & Hudson, 1998).

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).

Think It Over

Think about a time when you failed to notice something around you because your attention was focused elsewhere. If someone pointed it out, were you surprised that you hadn’t noticed it right away?

North, A & Hargreaves, David & McKendrick, Jennifer. (1999). The Influence of In-Store Music on Wine Selections. Journal of Applied Psychology. 84. 271-276. 10.1037/0021-9010.84.2.271. ↵
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25 Sensation vs. Perception

Learning Objectives

Distinguish between sensation and perception
Describe the concepts of absolute threshold and difference threshold
Discuss the roles attention, motivation, and sensory adaptation play in perception

What does it mean to sense something? Sensory receptors are specialized neurones 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 .

Psychophysics is the branch of psychology that studies the effects of physical stimuli on sensory perceptions and mental states. The field of psychophysics was founded by the German psychologist Gustav Fechner (1801-1887), who was the first to study the relationship between the strength of a stimulus and a person’s ability to detect the stimulus.

The measurement techniques developed by Fechner and his colleagues are designed in part to help determine the limits of human sensation. One important criterion is the ability to detect very faint stimuli. The absolute threshold of a sensation is defined as the intensity of a stimulus that allows an organism to just barely detect it. In a typical psychophysics experiment, an individual is presented with a series of trials in which a signal is sometimes presented and sometimes not, or in which two stimuli are presented that are either the same or different. Imagine, for instance, that you were asked to take a hearing test. On each of the trials your task is to indicate either “yes” if you heard a sound or “no” if you did not. The signals are purposefully made to be very faint, making accurate judgments difficult.

The problem for you is that the very faint signals create uncertainty. Because our ears are constantly sending background information to the brain, you will sometimes think that you heard a sound when none was there, and you will sometimes fail to detect a sound that is there. Your task is to determine whether the neural activity that you are experiencing is due to the background noise alone or is the result of a signal within the noise. The responses that you give on the hearing test can be analyzed using signal detection analysis. Signal detection analysis is a technique used to determine the ability of the perceiver to separate true signals from background noise (Macmillan & Creelman, 2005; Wickens, 2002). As you can see in Figure SAP.2, “Outcomes of a Signal Detection Analysis,” each judgment trial creates four possible outcomes: A hit occurs when you, as the listener, correctly say “yes” when there was a sound. A false alarm occurs when you respond “yes” to no signal. In the other two cases you respond “no” — either a miss (saying “no” when there was a signal) or a correct rejection (saying “no” when there was in fact no signal).

A 2x2 table presenting the outcomes of a signal detection analysis. The title of the top x-axis says "Perceiver's response" and the left y-axis says "Stimulus". The words "Yes" and "No" correspond to the top columns, and the words "Present' and "Absent" for the rows. Stimulus Present is a Hit if it is under the perceiver response "Yes" and a Miss if the perceiver's response is "No". The Stimulus Absent corresponds to a false alarm if the perceiver's response is "Yes" and a correct rejection if the perceiver's response is "No"

The analysis of the data from a psychophysics experiment creates two measures. One measure, known as sensitivity , refers to the true ability of the individual to detect the presence or absence of signals. People who have better hearing will have higher sensitivity than will those with poorer hearing. The other measure, response bias , refers to a behavioural tendency to respond “yes” to the trials, which is independent of sensitivity.

Imagine, for instance, that rather than taking a hearing test, you are a soldier on guard duty, and your job is to detect the very faint sound of the breaking of a branch that indicates that an enemy is nearby. You can see that in this case making a false alarm by alerting the other soldiers to the sound might not be as costly as a miss (a failure to report the sound), which could be deadly. Therefore, you might well adopt a very lenient response bias in which whenever you are at all unsure, you send a warning signal. In this case your responses may not be very accurate (your sensitivity may be low because you are making a lot of false alarms) and yet the extreme response bias can save lives.

Another application of signal detection occurs when medical technicians study body images for the presence of cancerous tumours. Again, a miss (in which the technician incorrectly determines that there is no tumour) can be very costly, but false alarms (referring patients who do not have tumours to further testing) also have costs. The ultimate decisions that the technicians make are based on the quality of the signal (clarity of the image), their experience and training (the ability to recognize certain shapes and textures of tumours), and their best guesses about the relative costs of misses versus false alarms.

Although we have focused to this point on the absolute threshold, a second important criterion concerns the ability to assess differences between stimuli. The difference threshold (or just noticeable difference [JND]), refers to the change in a stimulus that can just barely be detected by the organism. The German physiologist Ernst Weber (1795-1878) made an important discovery about the JND — namely, that the ability to detect differences depends not so much on the size of the difference but on the size of the difference in relation to the absolute size of the stimulus. Weber’s law maintains that the just noticeable difference of a stimulus is a constant proportion of the original intensity of the stimulus. As an example, if you have a cup of coffee that has only a very little bit of sugar in it (say one teaspoon), adding another teaspoon of sugar will make a big difference in taste. But if you added that same teaspoon to a cup of coffee that already had five teaspoons of sugar in it, then you probably wouldn’t taste the difference as much (in fact, according to Weber’s law, you would have to add five more teaspoons to make the same difference in taste).

One interesting application of Weber’s law is in our everyday shopping behaviour. Our tendency to perceive cost differences between products is dependent not only on the amount of money we will spend or save, but also on the amount of money saved relative to the price of the purchase. For example, if you were about to buy a soda or candy bar in a convenience store, and the price of the items ranged from $1 to $3, you would likely think that the $3 item cost “a lot more” than the $1 item. But now imagine that you were comparing between two music systems, one that cost $397 and one that cost $399. Probably you would think that the cost of the two systems was “about the same,” even though buying the cheaper one would still save you $2.

Research Focus: Influence without Awareness

If you study Figure SAP.3, “Absolute Threshold,” you will see that the absolute threshold is the point where we become aware of a faint stimulus. After that point, we say that the stimulus is conscious because we can accurately report on its existence (or its nonexistence) more than 50% of the time. But can subliminal stimuli (events that occur below the absolute threshold and of which we are not conscious) have an influence on our behaviour?

A graph showing a mockup of the absolute threshold. As the intensity of stimulus increases on the X-axis , the percentage of correct detections increases on the Y-axis on an S-shaped curve. Data below the Absolute Threshold point on the X-axis corresponds to data below the 50% point of correct detections, and is labeled subliminal stimuli

A variety of research programs have found that subliminal stimuli can influence our judgments and behaviour, at least in the short term (Dijksterhuis, 2010). But whether the presentation of subliminal stimuli can influence the products that we buy has been a more controversial topic in psychology. In one relevant experiment, Karremans, Stroebe, and Claus (2006) had Dutch college students view a series of computer trials in which a string of letters such as BBBBBBBBB or BBBbBBBBB were presented on the screen. To be sure they paid attention to the display, the students were asked to note whether the strings contained a small b. However, immediately before each of the letter strings, the researchers presented either the name of a drink that is popular in Holland (Lipton Ice) or a control string containing the same letters as Lipton Ice (NpeicTol). These words were presented so quickly (for only about one-fiftieth of a second) that the participants could not see them.

Then the students were asked to indicate their intention to drink Lipton Ice by answering questions such as “If you would sit on a terrace now, how likely is it that you would order Lipton Ice,” and also to indicate how thirsty they were at the time. The researchers found that the students who had been exposed to the “Lipton Ice” words (and particularly those who indicated that they were already thirsty) were significantly more likely to say that they would drink Lipton Ice than were those who had been exposed to the control words.

If they were effective, procedures such as this (we can call the technique “subliminal advertising” because it advertises a product outside awareness) would have some major advantages for advertisers, because it would allow them to promote their products without directly interrupting the consumers’ activity and without the consumers’ knowing they are being persuaded. People cannot argue with, or attempt to avoid being influenced by, messages received outside awareness. Due to fears that people may be influenced without their knowing, subliminal advertising has been banned in many countries, including Australia, Canada, Great Britain, the United States, and Russia.

Although it has been proven to work in some research, subliminal advertising’s effectiveness is still uncertain. Charles Trappey (1996) conducted a meta-analysis in which he combined 23 leading research studies that had tested the influence of subliminal advertising on consumer choice. The results showed that subliminal advertising had a negligible effect on consumer choice. Saegert (1987, p. 107) concluded that “marketing should quit giving subliminal advertising the benefit of the doubt,” arguing that the influences of subliminal stimuli are usually so weak that they are normally overshadowed by the person’s own decision making about the behaviour.

Taken together then, the evidence for the effectiveness of subliminal advertising is weak, and its effects may be limited to only some people and in only some conditions. You probably don’t have to worry too much about being subliminally persuaded in your everyday life, even if subliminal ads are allowed in your country. But even if subliminal advertising is not all that effective itself, there are plenty of other indirect advertising techniques that are used and that do work. For instance, many ads for automobiles and alcoholic beverages are subtly sexualized, which encourages the consumer to indirectly (even if not subliminally) associate these products with sexuality. And there is the ever more frequent “product placement” technique, where images of brands (cars, sodas, electronics, and so forth) are placed on websites and in popular television shows and movies. Harris, Bargh, & Brownell (2009) found that being exposed to food advertising on television significantly increased child and adult snacking behaviours, again suggesting that the effects of perceived images, even if presented above the absolute threshold, may nevertheless be very subtle.

Another example of processing that occurs outside our awareness is seen when certain areas of the visual cortex are damaged, causing blindsight , a condition in which people are unable to consciously report on visual stimuli but nevertheless are able to accurately answer questions about what they are seeing. When people with blindsight are asked directly what stimuli look like, or to determine whether these stimuli are present at all, they cannot do so at better than chance levels. They report that they cannot see anything. However, when they are asked more indirect questions, they are able to give correct answers. For example, people with blindsight are able to correctly determine an object’s location and direction of movement, as well as identify simple geometrical forms and patterns (Weiskrantz, 1997). It seems that although conscious reports of the visual experiences are not possible, there is still a parallel and implicit process at work, enabling people to perceive certain aspects of the stimuli.

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. Bottom-up processing refers to sensory information from a stimulus in the environment driving a process, and top-down processing refers to knowledge and expectancy driving a process, as shown in Figure SAP.4 (Egeth & Yantis, 1997; Fine & Minnery, 2009; Yantis & Egeth, 1999).

The figure includes two vertical arrows. The first arrow comes from the word “Top” and points downward to the word “Down.” The explanation reads, “Top-down processing occurs when previous experience and expectations are first used to recognize stimuli.” The second arrow comes from the word “bottom” and points upward to the word “up.” The explanation reads, “Bottom-up processing occurs when we sense basic features of stimuli and then integrate them.”

Imagine that you and some friends are sitting in a crowded restaurant eating lunch and talking. It is very noisy, and you are concentrating on your friend’s face to hear what she is saying, then the sound of breaking glass and clang of metal pans hitting the floor rings out. The server dropped a large tray of food. Although you were attending to your meal and conversation, that crashing sound would likely get through your attentional filters and capture your attention. You would have no choice but to notice it. That attentional capture would be caused by the sound from the environment: it would be bottom-up.

Alternatively, top-down processes are generally goal directed, slow, deliberate, effortful, and under your control (Fine & Minnery, 2009; Miller & Cohen, 2001; Miller & D’Esposito, 2005). For instance, if you misplaced your keys, how would you look for them? If you had a yellow key fob, you would probably look for yellowness of a certain size in specific locations, such as on the counter, coffee table, and other similar places. You would not look for yellowness on your ceiling fan, because you know keys are not normally lying on top of a ceiling fan. That act of searching for a certain size of yellowness in some locations and not others would be top-down—under your control and based on your experience.

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 odour of cinnamon, but the perception may be “Mmm, this smells like the bread Grandma used to bake when the family gathered for holidays.”

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 going to a city that you have never visited. You check in to the hotel, but when you get to your room, there is a road construction sign with a bright flashing light outside your window. Unfortunately, there are no other rooms available, so you are stuck with a flashing light. You decide to watch television to unwind. The flashing light was extremely annoying when you first entered your room. It was as if someone was continually turning a bright yellow spotlight on and off in your room, but after watching television for a short while, you no longer notice the light flashing. The light is still flashing and filling your room with yellow light every few seconds, and the photoreceptors in your eyes still sense the light, but you no longer perceive the rapid changes in lighting conditions. That you no longer perceive the flashing light demonstrates sensory adaptation and shows that while closely associated, sensation and perception are different.

LINK TO LEARNING

One of the most interesting demonstrations of how important attention is in determining our perception of the environment occurred in a famous study conducted by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris (1999). In this study, participants watched a video of people dressed in black and white passing basketballs. Participants were asked to count the number of times the team dressed in white passed the ball. During the video, a person dressed in a black gorilla costume walks among the two teams. You would think that someone would notice the gorilla, right? Nearly half of the people who watched the video didn’t notice the gorilla at all, despite the fact that he was clearly visible for nine seconds. Because participants were so focused on the number of times the team dressed in white was passing the ball, they completely tuned out other visual information. Inattentional blindness is the failure to notice something that is completely visible because the person was actively attending to something else and did not pay attention to other things (Mack & Rock, 1998; Simons & Chabris, 1999).

In a similar experiment, researchers tested inattentional blindness by asking participants to observe images moving across a computer screen. They were instructed to focus on either white or black objects, disregarding the other colour. When a red cross passed across the screen, about one third of subjects did not notice it ( Figure SAP.5 ) (Most, Simons, Scholl, & Chabris, 2000).

Our perceptions can also be affected by our beliefs, values, prejudices, expectations, and life experiences. As you will see later in this chapter, individuals who are deprived of the experience of binocular vision during critical periods of development have trouble perceiving depth (Fawcett, Wang, & Birch, 2005). The shared experiences of people within a given cultural context can have pronounced effects on perception. For example, Marshall Segall, Donald Campbell, and Melville Herskovits (1963) published the results of a multinational study in which they demonstrated that individuals from Western cultures were more prone to experience certain types of visual illusions than individuals from non-Western cultures, and vice versa. One such illusion that Westerners were more likely to experience was the Müller-Lyer illusion ( Figure SAP.6 ): The lines appear to be different lengths, but they are actually the same length.

These perceptual differences were consistent with differences in the types of environmental features experienced on a regular basis by people in a given cultural context. People in Western cultures, for example, have a perceptual context of buildings with straight lines, what Segall’s study called a carpentered world (Segall et al., 1966). In contrast, people from certain non-Western cultures with an uncarpentered view, such as the Zulu of South Africa, whose villages are made up of round huts arranged in circles, are less susceptible to this illusion (Segall et al., 1999). It is not just vision that is affected by cultural factors. Indeed, research has demonstrated that the ability to identify an odour, and rate its pleasantness and its intensity, varies cross-culturally (Ayabe-Kanamura, Saito, Distel, Martínez-Gómez, & Hudson, 1998).

Children described as thrill seekers are more likely to show taste preferences for intense sour flavours (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).

Introduction to Psychology & Neuroscience by Edited by Leanne Stevens is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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York H. Gunther is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at California State University at Northridge.

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Sensation and Perception Essay

Author: arsalan
Posted on: 28 Oct 2019
Paper Type: Free Essay
Subject: English
Wordcount: 1378 words
Published: 28th Oct 2019

A sensation is a process by which sensory receptors receive stimulation and produce nerve impulses that are sent to the brain. They, in turn, interpret the impulse into a real image, sound, pain, or taste. These physical stimulants are the one that emits energy that is absorbed by a sensory organ such as the hand, tongue, or nose and causes a sensation. Perception, on the other hand, is the action that occurs after the brain has received a message from the neural impulses; the process involves the interpretation as well as translation of the information received. It is an important process that helps us in rationalizing the information that is related to the physical stimulus. Hence perception is when the brain processes the data it has received as well as giving it meaning.

The human being has different sensory organs that have different stimulation which is around through smelling, hearing, tasting, and finally being felt physically in the skin. These sensory organs receive a signal from the surrounding and the process is the one that is called sensation. In simple terms, perception can as well be stated as another sensory organ, to sum up the human sensory organs to six. It is when anything and everything around us happens, and an opinion is formed. It is a personal experience as well as what is in the mind or what they think r view the world around them. People are different. The sensation is an important element in creating a perception. It is very simple that creators of awareness of qualities such as taste and color, among others, are a result of the excitement of the sensory organs. Perception is a complex process that is psychological, while sensation is just a simple process that is more physical.

It is clear that perception and sensation are the elements that complement as well as balance each the. The stimuli-related information could not have a meaning. Without the presence of sensation then perception will not happen as well. The case is an exception to an individual who believes in extra perception. It is also clear that without perception our sensation would have remained unknown since the mental processing is not there.

However, these processes are very different things. They differ in a number of things despite the fact that they relate to and support each other. The difference between perception and sensation is that sensation is just a passive activity that brings information from the outside environment into the body as well as the brain. On the other hand, perception is the active process that organizes, selects as well as interprets the data that is sent by the sensory organs such as the ear, hand, or any other human sensory organ. A sensation is a passive process since we do not engage in the sensing process in our consent. Every individual can be in a position to sense a variety of information or different situations at the same time. For instance, a person can be able to feel the temperature of that given room, the sound of a hooting train, smell of perfume. We can say that due to too much information from the sensation of our brain, everytimes do not interpret everything. Perception interprets psychologically what we have seen or any physical activity that has sent some signal to the brain so that the brain may interpret.

For instance, in a case where you’re talking to an individual in the process, you might not realize that there is a person who has just got in. Despite the fact that the footsteps were heard as well as the door creek, the brain did not just interpret the information, and therefore perceiving the coming in of that person was not possible. Most of the activities we do in this world may go unperceived. There are a number of important things in the world that go unnoticed.

More so we can say that perception is shaped by expectation, memory as well as learning. An example of it will bring about more distinctive things about perception as well as sensation. For instance, when we are far building or structure that we are seeing may appear smaller, but as we walk closer, the building tends to increase in size. It is, therefore, what an eye can see, hence we do not be surprised and start shouting about how the building is increasing as we move closer since, in our mind, we know the building has always been the same, and it is just the distance that makes the building appears so. Another instance is when something has been removed in a room, and we walk in; we can just tell there is a difference in the room compared to how it was previously.

According to most psychologists, they believe that sensation is an up-to-down process that involves the movement of information from the body to the brain, while perception is the opposite; perception is the up to down process. Hence this means that after a psychological process, perception occurs when the information is sent back to the sensory organs so that they can correspond to the physical stimuli. For instance, in a case where the hand has touched a hot object, the impulse will be sent to the brain, and after a psychological interpretation, the information will be sent to the sensory organ, and the individual will withdraw the hand from the hot object. The most important aspect is how we interpret the kind of data that affects our interaction with the world.

Therefore we can say that the way perceptions well as sensations process information are two completely different ways. In sensation, the sensory organ acts as a register of the physical property as well as the physical stimulus. It is the organ that decodes this data and changes the information into the neural impulse. The neural impulse is transmitted to the human brain. Hence we can say that there is no clear line of differentiating perception and sensation; in our real-life situation, we understand that perception follows sensation. Out of sensation and the information in the brain being processed psychologically, one can be able to make sense of a certain issue.

We can be able to compare sensation and perception since they consist of different processes. Perception is an internal activity that is psychological and can only be involved in the brain, while sensation is a physical activity that involves sensory organs. There is a different threshold that is associated with perception and sensation. These thresholds include absolute threshold as well as difference threshold. An absolute threshold is the one that works as a detector, and it refers to the weakest stimulus that an individual may still be able to perceive. At this level, perception is around 50%, and it is therefore known as the lowest intensity. Therefore comparing sensation and perception gives us a deeper understanding of how both relate and what it takes for the two processes to happen successfully.

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sensation and perception conclusion essay

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Sensory Data: Sensation and Perception Essay

The five senses: smell, touch, sight, sound and taste are avenues through which people perceive the world around them. Psychologists argue that through these senses, people do not experience sensation but the results of sensation. Regardless of this, the accuracy and inaccuracy of sensory data is affected by a number of factors namely environmental, psychological as well as physiological, which either distort reality or enhance it. As such illusion plays a big role in determining how accurate or inaccurate stimuli are perceived.

Naturally, sensory abilities are very accurate. However, a number of reasons lead people to believe in the accuracy of inaccuracy of sensory information. Previous experiences results to generalized assumptions about the nature of stimuli. Such assumptions make people ignore the context in which a given stimuli is perceived. Similarly, both cognitive and physical illusions alter perception, and thus the accuracy of sensory information. Illusions lead to alteration of reality.

When this occurs, stimuli are inaccurately perceived (Stangor, 2010). The five basic senses; light, touch, smell, sound and taste have a tendency to adapt to the environment. Sensory adaptation refers to the ability of sensory receptors to ignore familiar stimuli in preference of new stimuli. As such our senses ignore the fluctuation in the intensity of stimuli. Accuracy of sensory data is thus not guaranteed (Kraft, 1978).

The discussion above alludes to the fact that there are factors that determine the accuracy of sensory data. Accuracy and inaccuracy of stimuli is influenced by knowledge about the environment in which the stimuli is first perceived. This is because specific stimuli are associated with specific environments.

As such, people internalize the environment within which stimuli are perceived. Therefore the environment becomes part of cognitive interpretation of stimuli (Stangor, 2010). Similarly, psychological factors affect the accuracy and inaccuracy of sensory information.

Psychological factors refer to the emotional and the cognitive states of a person. Cognitive skills and abilities affect intelligence as well as how people apply knowledge. Poor cognitive skills might lead to misinterpretation and misapplication of knowledge and as such stimuli is inaccurately perceived. Furthermore, previous experiences may trigger an avalanche of emotions which affects how people perceive stimuli (Gregory, 1997).

Moreover, the physiological factors determines how accurate or inaccurately a stimuli is perceived. Physiological factors refer to the physical element of perception and sensation. Sensory receptors may be poorly developed. This leads to poor reception and interpretation of stimuli, which affects the accuracy of sensory data.

The factors raised above leads to the discussion on the role of nature versus nurture in reference to interpretation of sensory information. Naturalists argue that the ability to sense and interpret sensory data is innate. The ability of sensory receptors to interpret stimuli is determined by genes and not the external environment. This implies that sensory abilities are genetically modified and as such independent of the external environment (Carruthers, 2000).

On the other hand, nurturists argue that sensory perception is learned. This implies that senses develop as a result of environmental experiences. As such people’s experiences of the world and the environment in which they perceive stimuli contribute to the manner in which stimuli is perceived (Cardwell and Flanagan, 2003).

Sensation and perception are complex phenomena that cannot be restricted to a number of reason and factors. This is because the accuracy of sensory information is determined by a variety of variables both within and without human influence, which effectively distorts reality.

Reference List

Cardwell, M. and Flanagan, C. (2003). Psychology A2: the complete companion – Page 106. Cheltenham, GL: Nelson Thornes.

Carruthers, P. (2000). Phenomenal consciousness: a naturalistic theory . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gregory, R. (1997). Knowledge in perception and illusion . Web.

Kraft, C. (1978). A psychophysical approach to air safety: Simulator studies of visual illusions in night approaches . New York, NY: Plenum Press.

Stangor, C. (2010). Introduction to Psychology. Web.

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Essay on Sensation and Perception

Sensation and perception are two related and complementary processes that play different roles in human body throughout the lifespan. The sensation is the process encoding and sensing stimulus energy in the world through sense organs. The brain transforms sensation into action potential through transduction and message is delivered to the brain where perception is produced. Perception, on the other hand, refers to the process of forming and interpreting sensory information to create meaning. It helps people rationalize and make sense especially on information associated with the physical stimulus. The paper aims at analyzing how the two terms work mutually to process the stimulus.

The sensation picked by sensory organs involves four main types which are visual, auditory, gustatory, and olfactory. The visual receptors located in the eye retina detects the intensity, wavelength, and complexity of light. The structures enable the person to see different colors, textures, and shapes as well as heights and frequency. In the ear, the auditory receptors such as hair cell receptors and cilia detect the complexity, frequency, and intensity of the sound waves. The auditory structures convert the wavelengths into vibrations that are transferred into neutral impulses (Welfel, 2012).

Taste receptors on the other hand use papillae or taste buds to activate the presence of food in on the tongue. The molecules interact with saliva at the microvilli in the taste buds to send messages to the brain of the taste of something. It shows if something is salty, sour or sweet. Lastly, the nostrils use the hair receptors to detect smells in the external environment. The hair cells respond to particular chemicals and start the process of filtering the foreign particles from entering the nasal cavity (Welfel, 2012).

The sensation starts in three primary steps in the human sensory organs. Firstly, the sensory receptors detect a stimulus from the environment. The eyes, nostrils, and ears which are the primary sensory receptors convert the stimulus information from the outside environment into electrochemical impulses that act as action potentials and which are the only language understood by the brain. The formed electrical impulses are then transformed into a transduction process. Transduction begins when the sensory neuron detects a physical stimulus such as sound waves or light and proceeds to activate receptors through converting their excitation into nerve signal (Faisal, Selen & Wolpert, 2008).

The signal is transferred through the sensory pathway to specific sensory processing zones in the brain. Once it has reached the brain, the process of perception is activated. The brain starts the process of extracting critical information from the stimulus and therefore transfer information into the nervous system. The brain receives the signals from the eyes, ears, and nostrils and shapes the recipients attention, memory, and learning (Coren, 2003). This makes an individual response to any activity in the environment.

The process of perception comprises of two primary operations. The first process involves processing the sensory input which entails transforming low-level information to high-level information. For instance, an individual can extract shapes of things for recognition. Subsequently, another process is connected to an individuals expectations, concepts, and selective mechanisms. Although perception in the brains looks like a complex matter, the nervous systems make it smooth, and one cannot notice because it happens mainly outside conscious awareness (Welfel, 2012).

In the vision, the brain picks the signal from the visual receptors to convert it to make sense. The intensity, position, and color of incoming light are captured by the retinal ganglion cells, rods, and photosensitive cells. Additionally, the neutrons of retina provide space for movement of these aspects of light and then they are forwarded to the brain through optic nerve (Welfel, 2012). The brains convert the signal into information and enable an individual to react to the light such as blinking, closing eyes, and other responses.

Regarding the auditory system, the brain plays a crucial role in converting vibrations into real information. The sound waves collected and filtered by the outer ears are transformed into neutral signals that are sent to the brain. The signals are processed in the primary auditory cortex that is located in the temporal lobe of the brain. The result is enabling a person to hear various sounds in his/her surrounding and allows one to respond to the stimuli (Goldstein & Brockmole, 2016).

Touch is another form of perception that is processed by the brain. This is achieved through a haptic perception which involves recognizing things through touch. The skin has several receptors that send the signals to the brain which interprets them into information. The brain through the somatosensory perception of patterns located on the skin enables one to have a touch of texture, edges, and curvature of objects. Furthermore, the brain assists in responding to the stimuli by moving the fingers over the surface of the object and handling them. Lastly, the brain is significant in enabling a person to have the ability to taste flavors of various substances. The molecules at the microvilli send signals to the brain where the information is sent back to the taste buds. The taste buds help an individual to have a feeling of bitterness, saltiness, sourness or any other taste (Goldstein & Brockmole, 2016).

Conclusively, the paper has extensively analyzed the relationships between sensations and perceptions in processing a stimulus. The interactions between sensory receptors and crucial parts of the brain in concerting neutral signals into information have been explained.

Coren, S. (2003). Sensation and perception. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Faisal, A. A., Selen, L. P., & Wolpert, D. M. (2008). Noise in the nervous system. Nature reviews neuroscience, 9(4), 292-303.

Goldstein, E. B., & Brockmole, J. (2016). Sensation and perception. Cengage Learning.

Welfel, E.R. (2012). Ethics in counseling and psychotherapy: Standards, research, and emerging issues. (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks Cole

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Example Of Sensation And Perception Essay
This turns back to the initial definition of sensation being reception of a stimulus by an organism. The other aspect is perception. From a philosophical perspective, perception involves the brain where it is defined as a mental process of coming up with useful information on the data received by sensation.
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Understanding Sensation. Sensation is the initial process through which our sensory organs detect and respond to external stimuli. It is the first step in the complex journey of information processing that ultimately leads to our perception of the world. Our five primary senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch—play a crucial role in ...
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Explore further. Sensation and perception are fundamental physiological processes whose effect transcends beyond comprehending the occurrences in the surroundings. Although they are distinct and autonomous, both concepts are interlinked and function complementarily to enable world experiences through skin, tongue, ears, nose, and eyes.
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Continue your study of Sensation and Perception with these useful links. Sensation and Perception Quiz. Review Questions. From a general summary to chapter summaries to explanations of famous quotes, the SparkNotes Sensation and Perception Study Guide has everything you need to ace quizzes, tests, and essays.
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In conclusion, sensation and perception are two essential processes that help us understand and interact with the world around us. Sensation involves the detection of physical stimuli by our sensory organs, while perception involves the interpretation of these stimuli to create meaningful perceptions of the world.
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Sensation is input about the physical world obtained by our sensory receptors, and perception is the process by which the brain selects, organizes, and interprets these sensations. In other words, senses are the physiological basis of perception. Perception of the same senses may vary from one person to another because each person's brain ...
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Sensory receptors are specialized neurones 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 ...
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Sensation refers to the process through which signals from the environment are directed from sensory receptors and passed to the brain. Sensation involves the use of the five senses, which are sight, taste, touch, smell and sound. Perception, on the other hand, refers to the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information in order to ...
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Views. 4369. Sensation is how humans process the world around us. We use the basic senses of hearing, vision, taste, touch, and smell to do so. Each sense has an absolute threshold that shows what the smallest amount of whatever the stimulus may be is that we can notice. We also possess the ability for our senses to adapt to the world around us.
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Sensation and Perception The issue of being able to trust one's senses has been the topic of many philosophical debates and whole books have been written on this debate. There are convincing arguments made for both sides of the issue. Nonetheless, anyone who ambulates, operates a motor vehicle, eats, interacts with others, etc. trusts the information that their senses give them (Christian, 2011).
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Published: 28th Oct 2019. A sensation is a process by which sensory receptors receive stimulation and produce nerve impulses that are sent to the brain. They, in turn, interpret the impulse into a real image, sound, pain, or taste. These physical stimulants are the one that emits energy that is absorbed by a sensory organ such as the hand ...
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Therefore, sensation is the stimulation of sense organs (i.e., eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin) and involves the absorption of energy, such as light and sound waves through the sensory organs, (Weiten, 1998). Perception refers to psychological processes in which the immediate organization and interpretation of sensations are involved (Riegler ...
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Sensory Data: Sensation and Perception Essay. The five senses: smell, touch, sight, sound and taste are avenues through which people perceive the world around them. Psychologists argue that through these senses, people do not experience sensation but the results of sensation. Regardless of this, the accuracy and inaccuracy of sensory data is ...
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Sensation and Perception: Attention. Perception is an essential subject in psychology as it discovers sensory inputs in people and their understanding and assertion. While our sensory sensors continually gather information from our surroundings, how we perceive that information ultimately determines how we engage with the world. Therefore ...
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Previous studies of speech perception revealed that tactile sensation can be integrated into the perception of stop consonants. It remains uncertain whether such multisensory integration can be shaped by linguistic experience, such as the listener's native language(s). This study investigates audio-aerotactile integration in phoneme perception for English and French monolinguals as well as ...
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Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Explain the difference between sensation and perception, noting where in the body each process occurs, and explain why these processes are inseparable., Distinguish between absolute threshold and difference threshold, and discuss whether we can sense stimuli below our absolute thresholds and be influenced by them., Discuss why ...
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The sensation is the process encoding and sensing stimulus energy in the world through sense organs. The brain transforms sensation into action potential through transduction and message is delivered to the brain where perception is produced. Perception, on the other hand, refers to the process of forming and interpreting sensory information to ...
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Perception is the active process of selecting‚ organising and interpreting the information brought to the brain by the senses. Sensation and perception are two distinct processes‚ which collaborate to help us make sense of our environment. Perception requires physiological mechanisms and psychological components‚ these combine to help.