PSYC 1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Absolute Threshold, Electroreception, Psychophysics

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: C Douglas McCann, Hilda Ho, Jala Rizeq, Ronda Lo, Iris Yusupov, Rotem Petranker

Document Summary

Psyc 1010 lecture 5 - sensation and perception. 5 senses: sight (vision, hearing (audition, touch (somatosensorial, taste (gustation, smell (olfaction) Fechner: for any given sense, what is the weakest detectable stimulus. Developed original methods --to relate stimuli(physics) to perception (psyche) Thresholds: absolute - 50% recognition - smallest stimulation detected 50% of the time, difference - jnd - smallest difference between stimuli detected 50% of the time. Weber"s law: jnd = constant ratio of standard to comparison stimulus. Jnd = amount of change in comparison stimulus/standard. = how much change needed to recognize a change, gives sensitivity of sense. If set threshold low to detect plane, more hits but more false alarms. If set threshold high, more misses of enemy planes but fewer false alarms: have to decide what is more important, maximizing hits of minimizing false alarms, detecting a stimulus involves. Stimulus ----- sense organ ----- transduction: same process - all senses, differences, type of stimulation, nature transduction.