PSYCH101 Chapter 5: Psych 101- Chapter 5

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: John Campbell

Document Summary

Our brain interprets this situation: you look with your eyes, you see with your brain. Sensation: the stimulus detection process by which our sense organs respond to and translate environmental stimuli into nerve impulses that are sent to the brain. Perception: making sense of what our senses tell us is the active process of organizing this stimulus input and giving it meaning. Your interpretation or perception of the characters is influenced by their context, that is by the characters that preceded and followed them, and by your learned expectation of what normally follows. Is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. Absolute threshold: the lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected correctly 50% of the time: the lower the absolute threshold, the greater the sensitivity. Table: some approximate absolute threshold for various senses. Candle flame seen at approximately 50 km on a clear, dark night.