Psychology 1000 Study Guide - Final Guide: Detection Theory, Absolute Threshold, Sensory System

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Mike Atkinson

Document Summary

Sensation: stimulus detection, our sense organs translate environmental stimuli into nerve impulses, those impulses are then sent to the brain. Perception: making sense of what our sense tell us, organizing the stimulus input and giving it meaning, perception is heavily influence by context. Synesthesia: condition in which the brain mixes up senses (ex. Sounds have colors: theory 1: the pruning of neural connections that occurs in infancy hasn"t happened, theory 2: insufficient inhibition in the brain so input overflows to other areas. Psychophysics: the study of the relation between physical stimulus and physiological response, fechner: the father of psychophysics . Absolute threshold: lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected 50% of the time, varies depending on fatigue, expectations, etc, lower threshold means better sense. Signal detection theory: situational factors can influence sensory judgments, when the perception is more important, people have lower absolute. Different (jnd) thresholds: perception is essentially a decisions.