INTERPRETING | TOLKING | UKUTOLIKA

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 Chapter 8
Sensation and perception
 Vision summary
• Visual signals processed at different levels: primary, secondary and
tertiary
• Secondary: objects, colour, movement
• Tertiary: with other senses for activities such as writing, arithmetic etc.
• Bottom-up processing: feature detectors, elements of visual stimulus
integrated to form image
• Top-down: context, past experience, learning
• Gestalt theory: proximity, similarity and closure
• Visual constancy: colour, size and shape
• Depth perception: monocular and binocular depth cues
• Illusions: incorrect perception from environment stimulus
• Perceptual deficits: agnosias
Sensory systems
 Hearing
• Sound waves = pressure
waves
• Objects move in front of
large speaker
 Sound waves
• Amplitude
– Size of sound waves
– Determines loudness (decibels/db)
• Frequency
– Number of waves per second (hertz/Hz)
• Wavelength
– Determines pitch
• Timbre
– Quality
– Musical instrument vs explosion
Sound waves
Structure of the ear
 Hearing: outer ear
1. Sound waves collected by the pinna
– Parts of the ear that you can see
2. Sound waves move down auditory canal to the
eardrum
3. Sound waves cause eardrum to vibrate
– Higher frequencies = faster vibrations
 Hearing: middle ear
4. Three bones in middle ear
that collect vibrations
– Malleus/hammer
– Incus/anvil
– Stapes/stirrup
5. Bones increase the
vibrations and transports
to inner ear/cochlea
 Hearing: inner ear
6. Vibrations reach oval window
– Start of cochlea
7. Three channels in cochlea separated by membranes
– Basilar membrane with small hairs
– Hairs float in fluid of the cochlea = auditory receptors
– Vibration moves parts of these hairs
8. Movement of hairs starts electrochemical
message/neural transmission
– Reaches auditory cortex in the temporal lobes
Cochlea
Cochlea
 Pathway to the brain

Auditory Auditory Medulla Auditory

Midbrain Thalamus
receptors nerve oblongata cortex
 Theories of hearing: loudness
• Loud sounds have a high amplitude
– High amplitude cause hair cells on basilar membrane to
bend more
– Neurons fire at a higher rate = loud sound
• Specific neurons with higher threshold for firing
– High amplitude + high sound wave = cross threshold of
specific neurons
– Message sent that sound is loud
 Theories of hearing: pitch
• Place theory
– Different frequencies cause specific places on basilar
membrane to vibrate
– High frequency: area close to oval window
– Low frequency: end of cochlea
• But, vibration occurs throughout the cochlea
• Not very specific
• Does not explain low-frequency sounds
 Theories of hearing: pitch
• Frequency theory
– Different pitches distinguished related to number of times
auditory nerve fires
– High sounds = nerve fires more often
– Explains low-frequency sounds
• But, neurons can only fire at 1000/second yet we hear
pitches at 20 000 Hz
 Theories of hearing: pitch
• Volley principle
– Neurons work in cooperative group, alternating firing
– Taking turns

• Combination of place theory and frequency theory

necessary
 Locating sounds
• Animals much better at identifying direction of sounds
– Human ears cannot move
• Sound shadow
– Sound reaches closest ear first
– Brain blocks sound waves to other ear to a certain degree
– Shadow and lowering intensity, small delay
• Both ears at the same time – turning head from one
way to other to create deliberate sound shadow
 Taste
• Chemical sense because a substance must be
dissolved for neural transmission to occur.
• Molecules need to dissolve in saliva
– Sweetness
– Bitterness
– Saltiness
– Sourness
– Umami/savouriness
• Absolute threshold low, but JND often very high
 Taste
• Thousands of taste buds
on the tongue
• New taste buds
continuously created
– Lasts about ten days!
• Hairlike extensions at the
top that is sensitive to
chemicals
 Taste pathway

Taste buds
Somatosensory
• (Hypothalamus) Thalamus
• (Limbic system) cortex
 Taste
• Not very sensitive
• Nose blocked, sense of taste almost disappear
• Much of what we taste depends on sense of smell
• Perceiving flavour
– Taste
– Smell
– Touch
– Temperature
 Smell
• Chemical sense
– Molecules dissolved in the mucus in the nose
• Molecules transferred to the olfactory epithelium
– Membrane that secretes mucus
– Below and behind the eyes
• Olfactory receptor cells activated
– Lasts four to eight weeks
• Sense of smell poor in relation to other animals
Structure of the nose
 Smell pathway

Olfactory nerve Olfactory bulb

Olfactory receptor • Through skull • Inside temporal lobe
cells • (Hypothalamus)
• (Limbic system)
 Smell
• Direct route to specific part of the brain for processing
sensation of smell
• Other sense travel from sense organs to the thalamus
– Conductor
• Necessary to taste a full range of food
• Sense of smell declines with age
• Anosmia: losing your sense of smell
 Touch
• Specialised receptor cells in the skin
– Pressure
– Temperature
• Different numbers of touch receptors in different
areas of the body
– Lips and tongue
– Finger tips
– Back
Touch receptors
Touch receptors
 Pain
• Intense negative pressure or temperature
– Important survival function
– Extremely distressing
• Highly influenced by cultural or situational factors
• Congenital analgia: inability to perceive painful
stimulus
 Pain: gate control theory
• Explains different perceptions of pain
• Receptors relay information to brain causing the feeling of pain
• Gate to the brain opened, that could be “closed” by other receptors,
thereby reducing pain.
• Two ways
1. Create impulses that take over pain pathway
– Rubbing the site of injury
2. Shut the gate through thinking it shut or using psychological factors
– Distraction
– Soldiers: relief
 Kinaesthetic sense
• Kinaesthesis: monitors the body’s position by noting
skeletons’ position and movement
– Receptors in muscles, tendons and skin
• Neural impulses move to somatosensory cortex and
the cerebellum
– Coordinated movement
• Important for movement and balance
 Vestibular sense
• Inside the inner ear
• Responsible for our sense of balance
• Three semi-circular canals consisting of fluid-filled
tubes
– Movement causes fluid to move as head changes angle or
rotates
• Otoliths: small crystals
– Senses forwards and backwards movement, fast or slow, up
and down
Semi-circular canals
 Alternative theories
• Neurobiological/cognitivist perspectives of sensation
and perception critiqued
• View of perceptual judgements as a consequence of
brain activity is inadequate to explain full spectrum of
perception and sensation.
• Especially apparent in studies of race-based biases in
perceptual judgement or social perception in general.
• AI and face-recognition of Black people
 Alternative theories
• Accepting race-based biases in perceptual judgements
as only a consequence of neurobiological activity
absolves racist individuals of their role in racial
discrimination.
• Traditional psychology of sensation and perception
may therefore unwittingly suggest that a mere
neurological stimulation or manipulation of
neurotransmitters might then fix this misperception
problem and related racism.
 Alternative theories
• Neurobiological view is unreflexive
– Might contribute to the problem of race-based biases
• Alternative psychology of sensation and perception
proposed
• Emphasises cultural ideology, context and subjectivity
– ‘Phenomenological orientation’.
• Recognises sensation and perception as integrally
personal in which we play an active and significant role.
 Alternative theories
• Since our outlook informs our perception, not all perception
or misperception can be understood as an optical or
auditory illusion.
• Race-based bias is a case in point and can only be
understood within the context of colonialism (and apartheid
in the South African context).
• Wilson et al. (2017) study on race-based threat perception
showed that bias in physical size perception of Black men
has an influence on the police’s decision to use force against
them.