General Psychology

Chapter 3
Sensory Processes and Perception
Sensations

1. What is sensation?
Sensation is the process by which our senses gather information and send it to the brain
2. What is the first link in the chain for every sensory system?
It is a cell called sensory receptors
3. Where are sensory receptors housed? Give examples of these organs.
They are housed in sense organs such as ears, eyes and skin.

Sensory Thresholds: How Much Stimulation is Enough?

4. What is an absolute threshold?

It is the point where something becomes noticeable to our senses. It is the softest sound we can
hear or the slightest touch we can feel. Anything less than this goes unnoticed. The absolute
threshold is therefore the point at which a stimulus goes from undetectable to detectable to our
senses.
5. What is the different threshold?
It is the minimum difference in intensity between two stimuli that one can detect. For example
adding one pound to the five pounds you hold is noticeable because you increased the weight by
20%. On the other hand if you add one pounds to the 50 pounds you hold, you will not notice the
difference because you increased the weight by only 2%.

Sensory Adaption

6. What does a sensory adaption enables a person to do? Give example.

It enables a person to find balance with the surroundings and efficiently respond to changes in
stimuli. For example we hear the noise of a refrigerator when we enter the kitchen, but after a short
time the sound fades and we no longer hear consciously hear the noise. In this case our sense of
hearing has adapted to it.

7. The phenomenon of sensory adaption occurs in all senses except one. What is it?

The sense of pain.

8. How many senses to we have? What are they?

We have five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing.
9. How do sensory receptors respond to physical stimuli?
They respond to physical stimuli by producing electrical changes that can initiate neural impulses in
sensory neurons.
10. What is the role of sensory neurons?
 They carry information from sensory receptors into the central nervous system.
11. Where do sensory receptors exist? Give examples
For some senses receptors exist in a specific sensory organ such as the ear, eye or nose, but for
others they exist in a wide variety of locations. For example, pain receptors exist not just in the skin
but also in muscles, tendons, joints and many other places.

Taste

12. Where are taste receptors located?

They are located inside small bumps on the tongue called papillae.
13. What does a papilla contain?
It contains a cluster of taste buds.
14. What are the basic tastes?
They are bitter, sweet salt and sour.
15. What is the location of taste buds that best taste each of the four basic tastes?
The taste buds on the tip of the tongue respond best to sweetness, on the sides to sourness and
saltiness and on the back to bitterness.

Smell

16. What is the process of smelling something?

The stimulus for sensation smell consists of molecules of various substances contained in the air.
Such molecules enter the nasal passages, where they dissolve in the moist of nasal tissues. This
brings them in contact with receptor cells contained in the olfactory muscosa. Once the cells detect
the molecules, they send messages to the brain.

Touch and Other Skin Senses

17. Where is the sense of touch located?

It is located all over our bodies.
18. How is the touch feeling sent to the brain?
Because the sense of touch originates in the bottom layer of our skin called dermis. The dermis is
filled with many tine nerve endings which give information about the things which the body comes
in contact. They carry the information to the spinal cords which sends messages to the brain.
19. What are the most common receptors in the skin?
They are heat, cold, pain and pressure or touch.
20. Why are pain receptors the most important ones in the skin for your safety?
Because they protect your body by warning your brain that your body is hurt.
21. Why are some areas of the body more sensitive than others?
Because they have more nerve endings.
22. Which receptors are deeper in a man’s skin the heat receptors or the cold receptors?
The heat receptors are deeper than the cold receptors in a man’s skin.
23. Our feelings of coldness and warmth is basically a relative comparison. What does that mean?
 It means that if our body is cold and we feel something warm, our brain will interpret as such, but if
our skin is already warm and touches something less warm, the brain will interpret the object as
cool.
24. What are the three types of skin sensation?
They are pressure, temperature and pain.

Pain

25. What are the receptors that sense pain? Where can they be found?
They can be found in superficial portions of the skin, in joint capsules, within the periostea of the
bones, around the walls of blood vessels and in deep tissues of most visceral organs.
26. What are the two types of pain? Give examples
They are the quick and sharp pain and we experience it when we receive a cut and the dull and
throbbing pain and we experience it from a sore muscle or an injured back.

Kinesthetic and Vestibular Sense

27. What is kinesthesia?

It is the sense that gives you information about the location of our body parts with respect to one
another.
28. Where does kinesthetic information come from?
It comes from receptors in joints, ligaments and muscle fibers.
29. What information does vestibular sense give us?
It gives us information about position, movement and acceleration.
30. Where are the sensory organs for vestibular located?
They are located in the internal ears.
31. What provide information about the body position in relation to the earth?
Two fluid-filled sacs.

Hearing

32. Which organ is responsible for balance and detecting body position?
The human inner ears.

Sound Localization

33. Give an example on sound localization.

When somebody calls you, you will be able to turn in the direction of this sound and spot the caller.
34. How does the placement of our ears help in localizing the sound?
The placement of ears in two different sides makes a slight difference in the time it takes for a sound
to reach each ear.
35. When might we have difficulty in localizing the sound?
We may have difficulty when it comes directly from in front or back of us.
36. What can help us resolve this problem?
 Head movement can help us resolve this problem by turning the head, you can create a slight time
difference for the sound to reach each of your ears and this can help you localize the sound.

Deafness

37. What is the difference between conduction deafness and nerve deafness?
We have conduction deafness when the transfer of vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear is
weak. We have nerve deafness when we have damage to the hair cells or auditory nerve.

Vision

38. When does vision begin?

When light rays are reflected off an object.
39. Light rays first pass through cornea, then pupil, then lens then the retina. True/False.
40. The more light, the wider the pupil opening. True/False.
41. The pupil cannot get smaller or bigger by itself. It is the iris that execute the pupil adjustments.
True/False
42. What is the retina?
It is a thin layer of tissues at the back of the eye that contains millions of tiny light-sensing nerve
cells called rods and cones which are shaped for their distinct shapes.
43. What do cones do?
They provide clear vision and detect colors and fine details.
44. What do rods do?
They allow the eye to detect motion and help us to see in dim light and at night.
45. Why do we see in black and white when there isn’t much light?
Because rods are not sensitive to color. They are responsible for our dark-adapted or scotopic
vision.

Perception
46. What is the difference between sensation and perception?
Sensation refers to the immediate unprocessed result of stimulation of sensory receptors in the
eyes, ears , nose , tongue or skin. Perception is the process by which organisms interpret and
organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world. In other words, sensation s
enable our bodies to receive information from the environment and perception enables us to make
sense of this information.
47. What is the advantage of selective attention ?
It allows us to maximize information gained from the object of our focus while reducing sensory
interference from other irrelevant sources.
48. Why can’t sensation and perception be separated?
Because they are a part of one continuous process. Sensations receive information and perception
makes sense of it.

Characteristics of Perception
49. Perception is a complex mental process. Various acts are involved in the process of perception.
Give example.
A child sees a fruit, touches it, smells it, tastes it and then combines the different sensations into a
meaningful pattern and perceives the fruit to be a mango.
50. Perception is influenced by past experience. Although perception governed by sense-organs, it is
influenced by past experience. Give example.
Two apples are given to you to eat. If you had tested green apples and you had a bitter experience
about it, you will choose the red one.
51. Perception is something accompanied by feelings. Give example
We experience a flower and feel pleasure. We perceive noise and feel dissatisfied.
52. Perception is accompanied by an action and sometimes followed by action. Give examples.
We climb an hill and perceive its steepness through our muscular actions. Perception here is
accompanied by action. A bell is rung in a college and the students leave their seats. The perception
here is followed by and action.
53. Perception is determined by a set. What is a set? Give example.
A set refers to one’s physical or mental readiness. For example, a doctor hears the sound of a
telephone while asleep because he is set to hear the telephone. But his wife may not be able to
hear it as she is not set to hear it.
54. Perception requires attention. We first perceive the object and then we attend to it. True/False
55. Perception is determined by habitual set due to past training. Give examples.
A chemist perceives much more in common objects which are chemical substances. An astronomer
perceives much more in the sky than a common man can perceive.
56. Perceptual is determined by a context. Give example.
The same man is perceived taller by the side of a dwarf, and shorter by the side of a very tall man.
57. Perception is a single unitary experience. What does that mean? Give example.
We perceive an object as a whole and not part by part. For example, we perceive a chair as a chair
not as an aggregate of the seat, the legs, the arms and back.
58. We perceive an object as a figure in ground. Give examples.
We perceive the moon in the sky. The moon is the figure and the sky is the ground. We perceive
words in a page. Words are figures and the page is the ground.
59. Perception is always selective. What does that mean?
We perceive a large number of sensory information. But we do not attend to all this information.
We select one at a time, attend to it and perceive it due to various conditions.
60. Perception is subjective. What does that mean?
Our perception of objects, situations or people is subjective in nature. Our perception is influenced
by our motives, needs, set, or attitudes. Since these subjective factors vary from a person to
another, the same object may be perceived differently by different persons.
61. Perception is an organizing activity. What does that mean?
The process of combining, grouping, and organizing the various properties or elements of stimuli
into a meaningful pattern is called perception.