 1.

To understand the definition of sensation and

perception, sensory adaptation, parts and
functions of the basic senses. List examples of
Gestalt principles of perceptual organization
 2. To describe encoding, storage and retrieval in
memory processes, the stage of
memory( sensory memory, short-term memory
and long-term memory). Explain Ebbinghaus'
Forgetting Curve and the causes of forgetting
 3. To summarize theories and functions of
emotion
 Sensation: Process
by which our Brain
receives stimuli from
the outside
environment.
  Perception: The process
whereby the mind
interprets outside stimuli,
and constructs a mental
paradigm.

,
 Sensation can be experienced in many
different manners.
 Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch.
 These are referred as Visual, Auditory,
Olfactory, Gustatory, and Tactile.
 Sound waves travel through the air, and
make contact with the ear drum. Vibrating
the ear drum, the vibrations are interpreted
into sensations that the mind can
understand.
 The exact nature of the olfaction system is
a mystery, however the basics include odor
molecules coming into contact with
receptors located in the upper nasal cavity,
the stimuli is then sent to the brain where it
is processed.
 Four Basic sensations are encompassed within
taste. These are Sweet, Sour, Salty, and Bitter.
 Each taste bud contains a pore which catches
food chemicals.
 It takes 1/10 of a second to register the taste.
 The epidermis [ˌepɪˈdɜːmɪs] （表皮） which
registers touch, is the largest organ of the
body.
 The four main types of Tactile sensation are:
◦ Pressure
◦ Warmth
◦ Cold
◦ Pain
 There are four distinct stages in the overall
biological process of sight.
◦ Signal generation
◦ Signal manipulation (in the retina视网膜)
◦ Signal projection
◦ Signal Manipulation, and perception (in the cortex大
脑皮质)
 Light enters the eye, and passes through the cornea.
 It then comes in contact with the retina, which does
the actual light sensing in the eye.
◦ There are two types of cells within the eye
Rods-primarily concerned with general light gathering, and vision
in low light conditions.
Cones-handle color vision and details.
 When light strikes these specialized cells there is a
series of chemical reactions that take place, and
ultimately, the light is converted into electrical
impulses.
 Generally, the outer segment of rods are long and
thin, whereas the outer segment of cones are to their
namesake.
 Visual sensation is considered to be the most
vital for everyday function of all the senses.
 More than 50% of the cerebral [səˈriːbrəl]
cortex is devoted to visual processing.
 More than just sensation, visual perception is
deriving meaning from the sensation.

Homo Significans- meaning makers.

Into each experience we bring with us
something called a perceptual set. This is
basically your own preferred interpretation.
 Perception linked with sensation. The two are
irrevocably linked.
Your mind will try to make
sense of this image, by
grouping the boxes into
rows, columns or groups –
all in an attempt to make
patterns from this image.
 The principe of proximity[prɒkˈsɪməti]（接近）
 The principe of similarity
 The principe of closure
 The principe of continuity
 Which avocado（鳄梨） has the pit still in it?

That might just all depend on your perspective….

 Or Old Lady?

Even given the same

sensation, the brain can
shift the paradigm to
mean something else.
 Which did you see first,
the hare or the duck?

The donkey, or the

seal?
 How visual perception operates:
◦ Distance

The projection of near

objects is large,
The projection of distant
objects is small
 ◦ Size

◦
 The big ones are close
to us,

The small one is far

away from us
◦ Motion

◦ Objects near move faster,

◦ Distant objects move slowly
◦ Relationship to environment

 The covered objects are

far away,

 The objects covering are

closer to us,
 The illusion of a 9 ft tall girl is a
carefully constructed one, but it plays
on several simples tricks.
◦ Lack of stereoscopic view
◦ Lack of distance cues, the room isn’t
cubic as it appears, but rather trapezoidal
（梯形、不规则四边形）.
 Shape recognition:
 Basic form used to identify objects
 Simple line drawings can be used to
communicate essential aspects of
objects or scenes. Such as the cave
paintings of Lauscaux.
 Written words are composed of
letters which are simply unique
configurations of lines and angles,
therefore reading is simply shape-
processing.
 Pattern Recognition:
 Crucial to identifying landmarks
 Moving through a building
 Reading a book
 In any given field experts are identified by
their ability to recognize multiple patterns at
once and respond appropriately.
Do you understand these sentences?
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cabmridge
Unievrsity, it deosn't mttaer in what order
the leettrs in a wrod are, the only iprmoatnt
tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at
the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total
mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid
deos tno raed ervey lteter by istlef, btu the
wrod as a wlohe.
 There are still areas of visual
perception that are not understood:
◦ The actual process by which we take
shapes, lines, contours（轮廓）, and apply
them to objects.
◦ How the mind moves from identifying the
shape of an object to the object itself?
◦ What part a person’s past knowledge,
experiences, expectations, motives and
goals, influence their perception?
 There have been many studies to
determine the influences on
perception
◦ Needs, i.e. hunger and the ambiguous lines.
◦ Mood, i.e. hypnosis experiment with pictures.
◦ Values, the football example Dartmouth VS.
Princeton.
◦ Also Age, Gender, Past Experiences, Religious
Beliefs, Socio-Economic status, etc.
 Reality is constructed from sets of
perceptions, and is how we each view the
world.
 These perceptions are derived from the most
stable, and usually the simplest forms
available. This is known as perceptual
organization.
ØMemory process
ØStorage of memory
Øforgetting
 The categorization[ˌkætəɡəraɪˈzeɪʃn]（分
类）, and prioritizing [praɪˈɒrətaɪzɪŋ]（优先
处理） of information is done to speed
learning, increase recognition of past
experiences, it gives a common human
frame work.
 It also serves to give the world more
meaning.
 Question:
 what is memory?
 The definition of Memory :
Memory is an organism’s ability to store,
retain, and subsequently retrieve
information. Cognitive psychologists study
memory as a type of information processing.
 Questions: what are the main stages in the
formation and retrieval of memory? and explain
them.
◦ Three main stages:
encoding storage retrieval or re

◦ Encoding: processing information into memory

◦ Storage: a creation of a permanent record of the
encoded information
◦ Retrieval: a process that relies on the cues and stimuli
from the environment.
1、explicit memory (外显记忆) : involving conscious
effort
implicit memory(内隐记忆)：unconscious memory
2、declarative memory （陈述性记忆）:
memory for facts
procedural memory（程序性记忆）:
memory for how to perform skills

3、Sensory Memory
Short-term Memory
Long-term Memory
 Questions:1.what is sensory memory?
 2.The duration of iconic memory and echoic memory.
 Definition: sensory memory refers to the initial,
momentary recording of information in our
sensory systems. Sensory memory systems have
large capacity but very short duration.
 Two main types: 1. iconic memory（映像记
忆）:momentarily preserves the visual world.
2.echoic memory（回声记忆）:holds auditory stimuli
 Questions:
 1.what is short-term memory?
 2.how can we increase the memory capacity?
 Definition:
Short-term memory (STM) has a limited capacity and
lasts only briefly without rehearsal. Maintenance
rehearsal can extend the presence of material in STM
indefinitely.

STM capacity can be increased by chunking unrelated

items into meaningful groups.

18707735698(187-0773-5698)
 Questions: what is long-term memory?
 Definition:
◦ Long-term memory can store much larger
quantities of information for potentially
unlimited duration (sometimes a whole life
span) . Long-term memory encodes
information semantically（语义的）.
 Questions: 1.what function does forgetting have?
 2.what is the characteristic of Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve?
 Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve
Forgetting occurred relatively rapidly at first and
then seemed to level off over time.
 Make a sum
If Ebbinghaus
took 12 trials to
learn a list and 9
trials to relearn
it several days
later, his saving
score for that
elapsed time
would be %?
 Retention = (initial
learning time or times
- relearning time or
times) / initial learning
time or times * 100%
 Questions:Explain the functional
amnesia[æmˈniːziə] （失忆症） and organic
amnesia?
 Functional amnesia(功能性遗忘)：memory
disorders that seem to result from
psychological trauma, not an injury to the
brain.
 Organic amnesia（器质性遗忘): any traumatic
forgetting that is produced by specific brain
damage.
 rehearsed

Information from
environment Sensory Short-term transferred
transferred
memory Long-term
memory
retrieved memory

forgotten forgotten
 记忆—memory  遗忘症—amnesia
 感觉记忆—sensory memory  组块—chunking
 短时记忆—short-term memory  概念—concepts
 长时记忆—long-term memroy  图式—schemas
 陈述性记忆—declarative  原型—prototype
memory  编码—encoding
 程序性记忆—procedural  储存—storage
memory  再认—recognition
 外显记忆—explicit memory  提取—retrival
 内隐记忆—implicit memory  首因效应—primacy effect
 映像记忆—iconic memory  近因效应—recency effect
 回声记忆—echoic memory
Emotion
Pleasure, elation[iˈleɪʃn]（兴高采
烈）, euphoria [juːˈfɔːriə]（兴奋）,
ecstasy [ˈekstəsi] （入迷）,
sadness, despondency（沮丧）,
depression, fear, anxiety, anger,
hostility, calm and other emotions
contribute to the richness of our
experience and imbue（使充满）
our action with passion and
character.

It is the inspiration [ˌɪnspəˈreɪʃn]

（灵感） and the product of all
kinds of artistic expression.
• Physical sensation: body/emotional state
– Mediated by peripheral[pəˈrɪfərəl]（外围的）, autonomic, endocrine
[ˈendəʊkrɪn]（内分泌的） and skeletonmotor responses.
– These responses involve subcortical（皮下） structures: amygdala[əˈmɪgdələ]
（杏仁核） - hypothalamus[ˌhaɪpəˈθæləməs] （下丘脑） -brainstem

• Conscious sensation: feeling

– Mediated by the cerebral cortex, in part by the cingulate（扣带） cortex and
by the frontal lobes（额叶）.
Neocortical
processing
‘feelings’ Skeletomotor and
autonomic control systems

subneocortical
processing
Emotional states
They have preparatory
[prɪˈpærətri]and
communicative
functions.
The preparatory
involves both general
arousal, which prepare
the organism as a
whole for action, and
specific arousal which
prepares the organism
for a particular
behaviour.
 Culturally universal expressions
 A theory of emotion must
explain the relationship of
cognitive and physiological（生
理的） states
In 1884, William James
propose that the cognitive
experience of emotion is
secondary to its
physiological expression.
James and Lange proposed
that the feeling state, the
conscious experience of
emotion, occurs after the
cortex receives signals about
changes in our physiological
state.

James-Lange theory fails to

explain why one often
continues to be emotionally
aroused even after the
physiological have subsided.
• This theory emphasizes the role of the hypothalamus and other
subcortical structures in mediating both the cognitive and
peripheral aspects of emotion. The hypothalamus and the
thalamus regulate the peripheral signs of emotions and provide
the cortex with the information required to process the emotion.
• The theory was based on the observation that cats in which the
whole cerebral cortex had been removed retained fully
integrated emotional responses, termed
sham rage because the responses appear
to lack elements of conscious experience
that are characteristic of genuine [ˈdʒenjuɪn]
（真正的）, naturally occurring rage.
• When Bard analyzed sham rage by
progressive transactions, he found that
coordinated response disappeared living
only isolated element of the response when
the hypothalamus was included in the
ablation（消融）.
• Autonomic responses are not an essential component of emotion.
• Emotion is the product of unconscious evaluation of a situation as
potentially harmful or beneficial, while feeling is the conscious
reflection of the unconscious appraisal（评价）.
– A key finding supporting this idea, is that we can have
emotional reactions to subliminal stimuli.
– An important implication of the theory is that emotions may
have their own logic, one that is not derived from either
conscious cognitive process or somatic events associated with
emotional states.
• An attractive feature of this theory is that it brings the study of
emotion in line with the study of memory storage, which indicate
that memory has two majors forms: a conscious (explicit) memory
for facts and personal events and an unconscious (implicit)
memory for motor and sensory experience. Memory of emotional
states (autonomic and somatic responses) involves implicit
memory storage, whereas memory of feelings involves explicit
memory storage.
 Peripheral (autonomic)
component of emotion
involves the hypothalamus.
Central component
involves cerebral cortex :
cingulate （皮层）and
prefrontal cortex（前额皮
质）.
Central to both of
these systems is the
amygdala（杏仁核）, which
is thought to coordinate
the conscious experience
of emotion with its
peripheral expressions.