Sensation and Perception Basic Concepts

The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events

• sensation

• perception

• threshold

• sensory adaptation

The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time

• threshold

• sensory adaptation

• difference threshold

• absolute threshold

A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid background stimulation -- takes experience, expectation, motivation and alertness into account

• subliminal perception

• Fechner's Law

• signal detection theory

• Weber's law

The principle that to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount)

• Fechner's Law

• Weber's Law

• Signal Detection Theory

• subliminal perception

 The magnitude of a sensory experience is proportional to the number of just noticeable differences ( difference thresholds) that the stimulus causing the experience is above the absolute threshold

• Weber's Law

• Fechner's Law

• Signal Detection Theory

• subliminal perception

Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation

• sensory adaptation

• psychophysics

• difference threshold

• subliminal perception

The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment

• perception

• sensation

• psychophysics

• just noticeable difference

The study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli such as their intensity and our psychological experience of them

• transduction

• psychophysics

• sensation

• perception

Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

• change blindness

• top down processing

• inattentional blindness

• bottom up processing

The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time -- the just noticeable difference

• threshold

• difference threshold

• absolute difference

• selective attention