This document provides an overview of cognitive psychology and sensation and perception. It discusses:
- The emergence of cognitive psychology as a field focused on studying cognition and mental processes.
- Key topics in sensation and perception, including the distinction between sensation and perception, thresholds, attention, sensory adaptation, and the roles of vision and hearing.
- Concepts like wavelength, amplitude, pitch, decibels and how they relate to visual and auditory stimuli.
- Anatomy of the eye and how light is sensed by the retina through rods and cones before visual information is transmitted by the optic nerve.
2. This is the era where new
disciplinary perspectives in
linguistics, neuroscience, and
computer science emerged, and
these areas revived interest in the
mind as a focus of scientific inquiry.
COGNITIVE
REVOLUTION
3. By 1967, Ulric Neisser published the
first book of Cognitive Psychology.
Noam Chomsky, an American linguist,
believed that psychology had to re-
incorporate mental functioning into
its purview if it were to offer any
meaningful contributions to
understanding behavior.
COGNITIVE
REVOLUTION
6. It is the area of psychology that focuses on
studying cognitions, or thoughts, and their
relationship to our experiences and our actions.
It is the study of how people perceive, learn,
remember, and think about information
WHAT IS
COGNITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY?
7. TOPICS TO DISCUSS
We will be uncovering the
following topics in the next
slides:
Sensation and
Perception
9. SENSATION AND
PERCEPTION
Imagine walking between buildings as you move from
one class to another.
Imagine standing on a city street corner. You might be
struck by movement everywhere as cars and people go
about their business, by the sound of a melody or a horn
honking in the distance, by the smell of exhaust fumes or
of food being sold by a nearby vendor, and by the
sensation of hard pavement under your feet.
These are all factors of interest to someone
working in the domain of sensation and
perception.
10. SENSATION
occurs when sensory information is
detected by a sensory receptor
TRANSDUCTION
conversion from sensory stimulus energy to
action potential
13. refers to the minimum amount of
stimulus energy that must be
present for the stimulus to be
detected 50% of the time. It is the
minimum amount of stimulation
required to trigger the sensation
of touch, taste, smell, vision or
hearing and it can still be
detected half of the time.
ABSOLUTE
THRESHOLD
14. Messages that are presented below the
threshold for conscious awareness. We
receive it, but we are not consciously aware
of it.
SUBLIMINAL
MESSAGES
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
15. Unlike the absolute threshold, the
difference threshold changes
depending on the stimulus intensity.
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.
DIFFERENCE THRESHOLD
OR JUST NOTICEABLE
DIFFERENCE (JND)
16. PERCEPTION
refers to the way sensory
information is organized,
interpreted, and consciously
experienced
22. SELECTIVE
ATTENTION
is defined as the processes that
allow people to choose and focus
on something in the environment
so that it can be processed further,
while at the same time suppressing,
ignoring, or minimizing information
that is distracting or irrelevant.
23. SELECTIVE
LISTENING
This phenomenon, known as the
“cocktail party effect,” allows
people to tune into specific
conversations around them even
when surrounded by many
distracting discussions.
24. 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
28. AMPLITUDE
Is the distance from the center line
to the top point of the crest or the
bottom point of the trough or the
maximum extent of a vibration
WAVELENGTH
refers to the length of a wave from
one peak to the next. These are
points in a sound wave or
electromagnetic wave
WAVEHEIGHT
vertical distance between the crest
and the trough
29. VISIBLE
SPECTRUM
is the only portion of the larger
electromagnetic spectrum that
can be visible to humans.
The visible spectrum in humans
is associated with wavelengths
that range from 380 to 740 nm
30.
31. In humans, light wavelength is
associated with perception of color.
Within the visible spectrum, our
experience of red is associated with
longer wavelengths, greens are
intermediate, and blues and violets are
shorter in wavelength. (An easy way to
remember this is the mnemonic
ROYGBIV: red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, indigo, violet.)
39. is the transparent covering over
the eye. It serves as a barrier
between the inner eye and the
outside world, and it is involved
in focusing light waves that
enter the eye
CORNEA PUPIL
is the small opening in
the eye through which
light passes, and the size
of the pupil can change as
a function of light levels
as well as emotional
arousal.
IRIS
is the colored portion of the eye.
40.
41. a curved, transparent structure
that serves to provide additional
focus
LENS RETINA
The light-sensitive lining
at the back of the eye.
CONES
These are light-detecting cells. They are
specialized types of photoreceptors that
work best in bright light conditions. They
also are directly involved in our ability to
perceive color
RODS
are specialized photoreceptors
that work well in low light
conditions. They are involved
in our vision in dimly lit
environments.
FOVEA
The small indentation in the back of the eye. It is
an area of the retina that is densely packed with
light receptors, giving you the sharpest vision
42. Optic Nerve
Optic Nerve
It carries visual information from the
retina to the brain. It is a bundle of
nerve fibers that carries messages from
your eye to your brain—passes through
one spot on the light-sensitive lining, or
retina, of your eye.
43.
44. Blind Spot
Blind Spot
This is a point in the visual field
that we are not consciously aware
of.
This is also called "Scotoma".
46. Three types
of Cones
According to the trichromatic
theory of color vision, as
opposed to rods, cones consist
of the three types of pigment
L- Cones
M- Cones
S- Cones
Absorbs Red Light
Absorbes Green Light
Absorbs Blue Light
47. The Human
Eye
The human eye has cone cells for
detecting red, blue, and green
light. These cells are used for
daylight vision.
Rod cells are used in night vision
since they detect only light and
dark.
