perception Flashcards
differentiate perception from sensation
perception involves INTERPRETING sensation
6 senses of perception
vision
hearing
somatosensation - awareness of the body in space
taste
smell (olfaction)
vestibular - inner ear senses gravity + movement
define qualia
subjective, qualitative aspects of conscious experiences, can’t be directly articulated, WHAT IS IT THAT EXPLAINS PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPERIENCES THAT ARE DIFFERENT, how does the brain know what is causing the stimulation it receives
grapheme-color synesthesia
letters and/or numbers always involuntarily associated with a specific colour
cafe wall illusion
‘grid’ lines actually horizontal but look all wonky
rotating snake illusion
when you move your eyes, contrast between two colours simulates a false sense of motion
checker-shadow illusion
squares marker A and B are same shade but look like not
* B receiving less light in the image so contrastingly we think it’s lighter –> we use shadows as context clues
troxler fading
stare at x, cat face disappears, –> activated receptors for colours get lazy
pink dots
blank space turns into a singular green dot, pink dots fade
what do illusions reveal
active processes the brain deploys to interpret images, reveals general rules about visual system to make guesses/inferences about physical world
dimensionality problem
there are to many diff chemicals to have receptors for each - we condense to biologically relevant dimensions (5 for taste, 400 for smell)
papillae
give tongue bumpy appearance, cover whole tongue and include bundles of fibres containing each taste receptor
primary taste sensations + what they sense
sweet: energy rich nutrients (carbs, sugar)
salty: electrolyte balance
sour: acidity
bitter: potential poison
umami: detect amino acids (MSG)
sensitivity to different tastes
most sensitive to bitter, then sour, salty, sweet. evolutionary.
supertasters
- more receptors on tongue
- more common in Asians + Africans + women
- unlikely to enjoy brussels sprouts + brocolli, coffee + fatty foods
two examples of taste not requiring presence of taste experienced
- miracle fruit - binds to taste buds, makes everything taste sweet afterwards
- pine mouth: bitter, metallic taste
what is spiciness
NOT a flavour - it’s literally just pain
babies and smell
recognises mother’s smell within weeks, suck more if senses own mum rather than stranger
shape pattern theory of olfaction
odorants would fit into odorant receptors + bind, producing smell sensation. INCORRECT - proved similar particles smelled vastly different, vastly different smelled same etc
can you ‘get better’ at smelling
yes, huge learning effects in identifying (wine training0
adaptation in smell
we adapt to our own smell, don’t notice it. more sensitive to smells that aren’t our own
importance of touch in movement
when can’t sense what ur holding it’s extremely difficult to move
two major subsystems of somatic sensory
- detection of mechanical stimuli (light touch, vibration, pressure, skin tension), monitoring internal/external forces on body at any moment
- detection of pain + temperature: detect potentially harmful circumstances
mechanosensory processing two types
EXTERNAL + INTERNAL
* detection of external stimuli
* proprioceptors - receptors INSIDE muscles, joints, other deep structures monitor mechanical forces generated by musculoskeletal system