PSYO 1021 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Detection Theory, Absolute Threshold, Synesthesia

• School: Dalhousie University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYO 1021
• Professor: Mac Kinnon Sean

Document Summary

Sensation: you look with your eyes you see with your brain, stimulus detection process, organs translate stimuli into nerve impulses, organizing & giving meaning to input. Activation of one sense results in involuntary activation of another sensory system. Individuals don"t often know anything abnormal is happening: example: sound colour, example: lexical gustatory, example: grapheme colour. A person with synesthesia can taste words. Its another case where the sensation (seeing words) is the same for different people, but the perception (various tastes) is very different. Intensity at which a stimulus can be detected 50% of time: the lower the absolute threshold, the higher the sensitivity. Weber"s law: just noticeable difference (jnd, smallest difference between two stimuli that can be detected 50% of the time, jnd is directly proportional to the magnitude of the, always a fraction stimulus. The jnd for weight is 3/100 (3%)