SENSATION AND PERCEPTION

DEFINITION OF TERMS
▪Sensation – is the simple experience that arises from the stimulation of the
sense organ.
▪Sense Organ- refers to sensitive nerve endings localized in the certain parts of
the body. It is referred to as “gateways of the mind”.
▪Receptors- are cells or group of cells specialized to respond to relatively small
changes in a particular kind of energy. A specialized nerve ending capable of
responding to energy.
▪Senses – mechanisms which convert stimulus energy into neutral energy.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
▪Stimulus- is anything which initiates an organic activity. Any form of energy
capable of exiting the nervous system like light waves, sound waves, and the
chemical energy that causes the sensation taste and smell.
▪Sensory Adaptation- is any reduction in sensitivity to stimulus as stimulation
persists through time. Sense organs have the capacity to adapt to stimulus
when such stimulus persists for quite a time.
▪Perception- simply refers to the interpretation of a stimulus- as differentiated
from the simple experience of stimulation.
SENSATIONS SENSES
VISION/ VISUAL SIGHT

AUDITION/ AUDITORY SOUND/ HEARING

OLFACTION/ OLFACTORY SMELL

GUSTATION/ GUSTATORY TASTE

SOMESTHASIA/ SOMESTHETIC TOUCH
VISION
Stimulus: Light Waves - The organ for vision is the eye. It is
stimulated by light waves that strike the retina where the photo-
sensitive cells- the rod and the cones- are located. The rods and
cones are the receptor for vision.
Radiant energy- meets various sorts of matter which affect it in
different ways according to their properties- they may slow it down,
bend it, absorb it or reflect it.
Sunlight- is a combination of all colors and is seen as white light but
when this is passed through the prism, it breaks into a band of
varicolored lights- as in the rainbow colors we see.
Structural Description of the Eyes:
The Process of Seeing

light rays eye corneas aqueous humor pupil lens

▪Accommodation- is a reflex reaction carried through the ciliary muscles and the
suspensory ligaments. The process when the lens become thinner to bring far away
objects into focus and thickens to focus on nearly objects.
▪After passing through the vitreous humor, an image is produced on the retina, rods
and cones are scattered on the retina.
▪Rods- are for night time vision and contain visual purple or rhodopsin, and is located
in the periphery of the retina.
▪Cones- are for day time vision, are scattered throughout the retina. The point of
clearest vision is located in the fovea (fovea centralis), a sensitive depression which
contains mostly cones.
▪Blind Spots – where the nerve fibers bundle together and leave the retina, no cones
and rods.
▪Iris - a circular arrangement of muscles that contract and expand to change the size
of the pupil depending upon the intensity of illumination called light or dark
adaptation. The color of the eye is due to the pigment in the iris.
 Three coats of Eyeball
▪Sclerotic coat- The outer layer, a tough opaque layer of connective
tissue used to protect the inner structures of the eye. Helps maintain the
shape of the eyeball, in front, this layer becomes the cornea which is
thin and transparent.
▪Choroid coat- is the heavily-pigmented layer which keeps out all light
except the pupil. The middle layer, a pigmented layer. It contains some
of the blood vessels that supply the eye with blood. It also absorbs
imperfectly focused light rays. In the front part of the eye, it becomes
modified to from the iris and the cilliary blood.
▪Retina – is the photoreceptor that translates light stimulus into nerve
impulses.
 Common Visual Defects
▪Hyperopia or far-sightedness- in this defect, the eyeballs are short and the image is focused at the
back of the retina. To correct these convex lenses may be used. Is caused by a shortened eyeball,
making the distance from the lens to the retina too short. The lens will focus at a point behind the retina.
A farsighted person is able to see far objects clearly but not near ones.
▪Myopia or near-sightedness- here the eyeballs are long and the image is focused in front of the retina.
To correct these, concave lenses are prescribed
▪Astigmatism- may be due to the uneven curvature of the cornea or the lenses. Light rays are distorted
and the image is likewise distorted. Cylindrical lenses are often prescribed. A structural defect of the eye
generally caused by an irregularity in the shape of the cornea.
▪Cross-eyedness or strabismus- Here there is much muscle imbalance causing the eyes to turn inward.
▪Presbyopia or old-sightedness- is a condition where the lenses harden and lose the ability to
accommodate. A special form of farsightedness which occurs with advancing age. The presbyopic
person cannot focus clearly on near objects.
Visual Abnormalities (functional and organic)
▪Hemianopsia- there is blindness to one side of the visual field due to lesions in the optic
tract.
▪Scotoma- is a condition where there are blind spots in the visual field.
▪Visual paresthesia- is a condition where there are optic sensations without an object.
▪Color blindness- Certain colors are black and green. Poor color vision can be cause by an
inherited lack of one or another of the three types of cones.
◦ Trichromat is normal, seeing light-dark, yellow-blue and red-green systems.
◦ Dichromat, lacks one system (partially color blind) and may see only the light dark or
any of the red-green or yellow-blue systems.
◦ Monochromat, is a totally color-blind person and can see only the light-dark system.
▪Night blindness- is a defect where there is the inability to see well at night due to lack of
Vitamin A, which plays an important part in the synthesis of visual purple.
AUDITION- Stimulus: Sound Waves
▪Sounds ­– are forms of energy activated when objects vibrate.
▪Compression wave – is the crowding motion that moves farther and farther out from the vibrating object.
A region in a longitudinal wave where the particles are closest together.
▪Rarefaction wave – is the zone of rarefied air moving away and away from the vibrating bodies produces.
A region in a longitudinal wave where the particles are furthest apart.

The region where the medium is compressed is known as a compression and the region where the
medium is spread out is known as a rarefaction.
▪Sound waves – one compression and one rarefaction comprise.
 The auditory Apparatus:
The Process of hearing
▪Outer ear- is the external protruding ear part that assembles the sound
vibrations to the auditory canal or meatus, to the tympanic membrane
(eardrum). It is the visible part of the ear, composed of the pinna, the
auditory canal, and the tympanic membrane commonly called eardrum.
▪Middle ear – the eardrums vibrates and transmits sound waves to the
three small bones or ossicles. An air- filled chamber that is connected to
the pharynx by the eustachian tube. This connection of the middle ear to
the pharynx serves to equalize the pressure on the two sides of the
eardrum. The middle ear structure is composed of tree small bones or
ossicles: the mallleus (hammer), the incus (anvil), and the stapes (stirrup).
These bones are hanging into the system of levers, so that the
movement of the eardrum is transmitted to a membrane called the oval
window.
▪Inner ear- can find a cochlea which is a fluid- filled bony structure shaped
like a snail shell. It is the organ of hearing. There are three canals in the
cochlea–the cochlear canal, the tympanic canal, and the vestibular canal
 Auditory
There are three dimension of tone just as there are of color:
▪Pitch – depends on the number of vibrations per second. Measured in Hertz.
▪Loudness – is correlated with the amplitude of sound waves. Amplitude of the sound wave; a wave
with bigger variations in pressure generally sounds louder
▪Timbre or the tonal quality of a sound – is the complexity of vibration. Differences in the quality of the
pitch are called timbre and depend on the actual shape of the wave which in turn depends on the other
frequencies present and their phases.
Auditory Defects. There are two kinds of organic defects:
▪Conduction deafness – is due to a disturbance in the conductions of air waves from the outer to the
inner ear. Deafness due to inability to transmit vibrations through the external and middle ear.
▪Nerve Deafness – There is loss of sensitivity of the receptors due to infection or injury. This kind of
deafness results from damage to the nerves themselves or to the delicate parts of the cochlea.
 OLFACTION: (Stimulus Odors)
The receptors for smell are found at the olfactory
epithelium located at the very top of the nasal
passages. They are sensitive only to gases and to
volatile substances that have been dissolved in the air.
1. Olfactory Receptors – The Nose- The receptors
in the olfactory epithelium of each nasal cavity are
connected without synapse directly to the olfactory
bulb of the brain lying just below the frontal lobe.
2. Phenomena of Olfaction
oOdors or smells – those gases that do react.
oOlfactory Adaptation – occurs after being subjected
to the same kind of odor for a specific time.
 GUSTATION: Stimulus – Taste Qualities
▪ Taste Receptors – The Tongue
-Much of the sensation depends on other factors-on warmth, coldness, the mild irritation caused by certain
spices, and above all, on smell. When our nostrils are stuffed because of colds. Food seems almost tasteless.
The tastebuds are the receptors for taste. They respond to four qualities of taste: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.
o Papillae – at the back of the tongue are protrusions.
o Circumvallate papillae – for bitter taste.

▪ Gustatory phenomena
Gustatory sense – is comparative well affected by the other senses.
▪ The taste process
The initial step is a chemical one. Stimulation by a taste solution depolarizes the taste cell and a weak bond is
formed between the ion or molecule of the substance and the molecular structure of the taste cell. This
depolarization excites the nerve fibers and gives rise to a nerve impulse.
 SOMESTHESIA or Skin Senses:
Pressure, Touch, Warmth, Pain
The skin has four separate senses: pain, pressure,
cold, and warmth. The receptors from the skin senses
are nerve endings which come in four general forms:
free nerve endings, globular bulbs, egg- shaped
corpuscles, and “baskets” surrounding root hairs.
▪Pain – these spots are more numerous than pressure spots
and the absolute threshold is lower for areas with greatest
density of spots.
▪Pressure – varies greatly for different parts of the body.
▪Cold – temperature for cold stimulation is from 10 to 30
degrees with varying psychological zeros.
▪Warmth – temperature range for warmth is from 35 to 70
degrees.
Proprioceptive Senses – Kinesthesis and
Vestibular Senses
▪Kinesthetic Sense – is the sensory system that tells us of position and movement of the parts of
the body. This is the sense of bodily movements. Its receptors are nerve endings found in
muscles, tendons, and linings of joints.
oMuscles – where free nerve endings surround small muscle spindles and which signal stretch of
muscles.
oTendons – connect muscle to bone.
oJoint Lining – possibly the Pacinian corpuscles are stimulated when the limb moves.
 
▪Vestibular Senses – the equilibratory senses deal with total body position in relation to gravity
and with motion of the body as whole. This is also called as the Static Sense. Two kinds of
receptors give information about movements of the head and permit a sense of balance of the
body.
 Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP)
It is perception without the mediation of the senses.
▪Clairvoyance­ – is extrasensory awareness of object. The term clairvoyance (from
French clair meaning "clear" and voyance meaning "vision") is used to refer to
the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event
through means other than the known senses. (e.g. joseph mcmoneagle)
▪Precognition – is fore knowledge of specific events without any rational means.
 (from the Latin præ-, "before" and cognitio, "acquiring knowledge"), also
called future sight, and second sight, is a type of extrasensory perception that
would involve the acquisition or effect of future information that cannot be
deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based
information.
▪Psychokinesis (PK) – or telekinesis ("distance movement"), is an alleged psychic
ability allowing a person to influence a physical system without physical
interaction. Includes mental operations that influence a material body or an
energy.
 END OF
PRESENTATION