PS101 Study Guide - Final Guide: Gustav Fechner, Detection Theory, Absolute Threshold
Document Summary
Visual agnosia- an inability to recognized objects through sight. Perception- the selection, organization, and interpretation of sensory input. Psychophysics is the study of how physical stimuli are translated into psychological experience. Gustav fechner was an important contributor to psychophysics in 1860. For any given sense what is the weakest detectable stimulus? (what is the minimal amount of light needed to detect that there is light) Threshold is a dividing point between energy levels that do and do not have a detectable effect. An absolute threshold for a specific type of sensory input is the minimum amount of stimulation that an organism can detect. A just noticeable difference (jnd) is the smallest difference in the amount of stimulation that a specific sense can detect. Weber"s law states that the size of a just noticeable difference is a constant proportion of the size in the initial stimulus. As stimuli increases in magnitude jnd becomes larger.
