PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Subjective Constancy, Afferent Nerve Fiber, Detection Theory

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jill L Atkinson

Document Summary

Transduction - conversion of physical energy into electrical potentials happens in sensory receptor cells, which are specialized neurons. Each of the senses have a complex transduction process by which electrical potentials in receptor cells are generated in response to physical stimuli. Each receptor varies its response to stimuli that differ quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative changes refer to changes in the magnitude of a stimulus, such as the intensity of a sound or light; you perceive such changes as changes in loudness or brightness. Qualitative changes refer to changes in the type of stimulus energy, such as changes in the frequency of sound perceived as different pitches or changes in the wavelength of light perceived as different colours. All stimulus characteristics must be coded in some way. Using these codes, each sensory sstem passes the info along specific anatomical path(cid:449)a(cid:455)s to the (cid:271)rai(cid:374)"s (cid:272)orte(cid:454), (cid:449)here further pro(cid:272)essi(cid:374)g o(cid:272)(cid:272)urs so that sensations are organized and interpreted as perceptions.