[Crash Course]Psychology V&VI Sensation and perception
Sensation: the bottom-up process by which our senses, like vision, hearing and smell, receive and relay outside stimuli.
Perception: the top-down way our brains organise and interpret that information and put it into context.
Example: So right now at this very moment, you're probably receive light from your screen through your eyes, which will send the data of that sensation to your brain. Perception, meanwhile, is your brain telling you that what you're seeing is a diagram explaning the difference between sensation and perception, which is pretty meta. Now your brain is interpreting that light as a talking person, whom your brain might additionaly recognise as Hank.
Absolute threshold of sensation: the minimum stimulation needed to register a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.
Signal detection theory: a model for predicting how and when a person will detect weak stimuli, partly based on context.
Sensory adaptation: if you're experiencing constant stimulation, your senses will adjust, in a process called Sensory Adaptation.
Weber's law: we perceive differences on a logarithmic not a linear scale. It's not the amount of change, it's the percentage change that matters.
Parallel processing: the brain simultaneously works on making sense of form, depth, motion and colour.
Synesthesia: The production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body. A rare and fascinating neurological condition where two or more senses get wrapped together. This kind of sensory mix up is involuntary, and is experienced without forethought in a durable and consistent way. Like, the number 7 is always going to taste like coffee and it's never going to switch to tomato juice. -What causes synesthesia? -Theory 1: The rogue development of new neural connections may override normal boundaries that typically separate the senses. -Theory 2: All babies are born with synesthesia and experience mixed senses until the brain matures and creates separate sense channels. -Theory 3: Neurotransmitters associated with one function turn up in a different part of the brain.
Our taste and smell are chemical senses, highly related to our experience and memory.
When it comes to our senses, we're all about touching. The sense of touch is actually a combination of four distinct sensations: pressure, warmth, cold and pain. Ultimately, your sense of touch joins forces with sensors in your bones, joints and tendons to provide your personal kinesthesis, the way your body senses its own movement and positioning.