PSYC 2000 Chapter : Psych Lecture Ch 3
Document Summary
Transduction: taste (gustation): food molecules, vision: light (photons, hearing (audition): sound waves, touch (somatosensation): pressure & temperature, smell (olfaction): molecules in the air, others , what is being transduced depends on what sense is being stimulated. Thresholds: absolute threshold: minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time. The point at which you pick up the stimulation. Detection: difference threshold: minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time, also called just noticeable difference (jnd). Weber"s law: example: suppose you presented two light bulbs each with an intensity of 100 units to an observer. The window of this change is very short: subliminal advertising does not work because it does not last that long. Habituation and vision: habituation is the tendency of the brain to stop attending to constant, unchanging information, the brain ignores stimuli that are being sensed, but do not change.
