SENSATION

What is Sensation?
Sensation a process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and
represent stimulus energy.
The psychologist is interested in what sensations the organism can report or what
discriminations it can make so that it can adjust its behavior according to the sensory messages it
receives.
In order for sensation to occur: Two factors which are necessary (1) There must be a stimulus (2)
There must be receptors that are sensitive to the stimulus. Kagan (1972) defines a stimulus as any
form of energy capable of exciting the nervous system like light waves, sound waves, and the
chemical energy that causes the sensation of taste and smell. A receptor is specialized nerve
ending capable of responding to energy.
Basic Principles
Psychophysics -study of the relationship between physical characteristics of stimuli and
our psychological experience of them
Light- brightness
Sound- volume
Pressure- weight
Taste- sweetness
The mechanisms which convert stimulus energy into neural energy are called the senses. There
are five primary senses: Vision, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and the Skin senses. In addition we have
the sense of equilibrium, kinesthesis, and organic sense.
General Characteristics of Sense Receptors
Absolute threshold
- The minimum amount of sensory stimulation that can be detected 50% of the time
Difference Threshold
- The smallest increase or decrease in a physical stimulus required to produce a difference
in sensation that is noticeable 50% of the time
- Just noticeable difference (JND)
- The smallest change in sensation that a person is able to detect 50% of the time.
Sensory Adaptation
- Ability to adjust to a particular stimulus.
SENSES
Vision Sense of sight
Eye Sense organ for vision

How We See. Its all about light. Light reflects off an object, and if that object is in your field
of vision, it enters the eye.
The first thing it touches is a thin veil of tears in the front. Behind this is your eyes front window,
the cornea. This clear layer helps focus the light.
On the other side is liquid called the aqueous humor. It circulates throughout the front part of
your eye and keeps pressure inside constant.
After the aqueous humor, light passes through the pupil. This is the central round opening in your
iris, the colored part of your eye. It changes size to control how much light gets in farther back. Next
up is the lens. It works just like a camera to focus light. It adjusts shape depending on whether the
light reflects off something near to you or far away.
This light now pierces the center of the eye. Its bathed in moisture from a clear jelly known as the
vitreous.
Its final destination is the retina, which lines the back of your eye. Its like the screen in a movie
theater or the film in a camera. The focused light hits cells called photoreceptors.
Unlike a movie screen, the retina has many parts:
Blood vessels bring nutrients to your nerve cells.
The macula is the bull's-eye at the center of your retina. The dead center is called the fovea. Because
it's the focal point of your eye, it has more special, light-sensitive nerve endings, called
photoreceptors, than any other part.
Photoreceptors come in two kinds: rods and cones. Theyre special nerve endings that convert the
light into electrochemical signals.
Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a layer of dark tissue beneath the photoreceptors. These cells
absorb excess light so the photoreceptors can give a clearer signal. They also move nutrients to (and
waste from) the photoreceptors to the choroid.
The choroid is separate from the RPE. It lies behind the retina and is made up of many
fine blood vessels that supply nutrition to the retina and the RPE.
Sclera is the tough, white, fibrous outside wall of your eye. Its connected to the clear cornea in front.
It protects the delicate structures inside the eye.
Signals from the photoreceptors travel along nerve fibers to the optic nerve. It sends the signals to the
visual center in the back of the brain.
And thats how you see: Light, reflected from an object, enters the eye, gets focused, is converted
into electrochemical signals, delivered to the brain, and is interpreted, or "seen," as an image.
Defects Of Vision:
There are four types of defect of the Eye: Myopia, Hypermetropia,Presbyopia
and Astigmatism. Below are given the nature of the defect, its causes and corrective measures:-
Myopia:
Nearsightedness, also called myopia is common name for impaired vision in which a person sees
near objects clearly while distant objects appear blurred. In such a defective eye, the image of a
distant object is formed in front of the retina and not at the retina itself. Consequently, a nearsighted
person cannot focus clearly on an object farther away than the far point for the defective eye.
Causes:
This defect arises because the power of the eye is too great due to the decrease in focal length of
the crystalline lens. This may arise due to either
(i) excessive curvature of the cornea, or
(ii) elongation of the eyeball.
Correction :-
This defect can be corrected by using a concave (diverging) lens. A concave lens of appropriate
power or focal length is able to bring the image of the object back on the retina itself.
Method for calculating the power of the corrective lens:
For calculating the required power of a corrective lens, we first find the power of the eye
at its far point. Then, we select a corrective lens of appropriate power to move the far point to
infinity. We then use the thin lens formula , written in terms of power P of the lens as
The image distance v of the eye can be taken as 0.02 m approximately.
Hypermetropia:
 Farsightedness, also called hypermetropia, common name for a defect in vision in which a
person sees near objects with blurred vision, while distant objects appear in sharp focus. In this
case, the image is formed behind the retina.
Causes:
This defect arises because either
(i) the focal length of the eyelens is too great, or
(ii) the eyeball becomes too short, so that light rays from the nearby object, say at
point N, cannot be brought to focus on the retina to give a distinct image.
Correction:-
This defect can be corrected by using a convex (converging) lens of appropriate focal
length. When the object is at N, the eye exerts its maximum power of accommodation.
Eyeglasses with converging lenses supply the additional focussing power required for forming
the image on the retina.
Presbyopia:
Presbyopia, progressive form of farsightedness that affects most people by their early 60s. The
power of accommodation of the eye decreases with ageing. Most people find that the near point
gradually recedes.
Cause and cure:
It arises due to the gradual weakening of the ciliary muscles and diminishing flexibility of the
crystalline lens. Simple reading eyeglasses with convex lenses correct most cases of
presbyopia. Sometimes, a person may suffer from both myopia andhypermetropia. Such people
often require bi-focal lenses. In the bi-focal lens, the upper portion of the bi-focal lens is a concave
lens, used for distant vision. The lower part of the bi-focal lens is a convex lens, used for reading
purposes.
Astigmatism:
Astigmatism, a defect in the outer curvature on the surface of the eye that causes distorted
vision.In astigmatism, a person cannot simultaneously focus on both horizontal and vertical lines.
Causes:
This defect is usually due to the cornea that is not perfectly spherical. Consequently, it has
different curvatures in different directions in vertical and horizontal planes. This results in objects
in one direction being well-focussed, while those in a perpendicular direction not wellfocussed.
Correction:-
This defect can be corrected by using eyeglasses with cylindrical lensesoriented to
compensate for the irregularities in the cornea.

Hearing
The organ for hearing sound is the ear. It is one of the most complex and useful organs in our
body. Hearing sounds is all about vibrations. Vibrations cause sound waves. For instance, if you
knock on your table, sound is produced as a result of vibrations from the impact. But the sound
alone means nothing until we hear it, and our brains interpret what sound it is.
The ear is made up of three sections. The outer ear consists of the earflap (also called the pinna
or auricle), the outer ear canal and the eardrum. The middle ear houses our bodys three smallest
bones, the ossicles. The inner ear consists of bony chambers called the cochlea and corti.
How does hearing occur?
The pinna is like a funnel, which directs sound to the ear canal and unto the eardrum. The ear
canal has wax in it that helps trap infections and particles from getting deeper into the more
sensitive parts of the organ.

Sound waves travelling through the ear canal reach the eardrum and bounces off, setting the
eardrum to vibrate too. This sets off more vibrations of the ossicles (the three small bones called
Hammer, Anvil and Stirrup) inside of the middle ear.

The ossicles are connected to the cochlea. The cochlea is a long chamber, shaped like a garden
snail, filled with a liquid. The chamber has a hair-like lining. As the vibrations travel through the
liquid in the chamber, the tiny hairs are stimulated, picking up the vibration signals from the
liquid and send them to a special part of the brain for interpretation. The entire process happens
within millions of a second.
Hearing defect:
Two types:
1. Conduction deafness This can be produced by some defect in the system of bones and
membranes that conduct sound stimulus to the inner ear.
2. Nerve deafness This kind of deafness result from damage to the nerves themselves or to
the delicate parts of the cochlea.

Smell
One important factor to note about our sense of smell is that there has to be some very tiny
particles (molecules) from whatever we smell. Think about cooking food or burning a candle, or
spraying a perfume: all these release very tiny molecules that our eyes do not see into the air we
breathe. But what happens during smelling?
The organ for smelling is the nose. Here is the diagram of the entire system.

At the roof of our nasal cavity, there are very tiny hairs (called olfactory cilia) that get stimulated
after they pick up chemicals in the air going into our lungs. As they pick up the signal, they send
it to the olfactory bulb. The impulse is then sent to the brain for interpretation. Note that for the
brain to assign a particular smell to a signal, it uses its memory. This means, for the first time
you smell something, good or bad, the brain stores it appropriately.

The sensory receptors in the nose that pick up chemicals are called Chemoreceptors. These
receptors get tired after constantly receiving signals of the same stimuli. This is why if you stay
in a smelly room for a long time, it becomes normal until you go out and come back in.

It is believed that over 80% of what we perceive as taste is actually due to smell. This means if
food smells great, you are more likely to love the taste of it. Funny huh?

The receptors cover an area of about a small post stamp in your nose. When you have a bad cold,
mucus covers that part of the nose, reducing the amount of stimulus the receptors pick.

Taste
Gustation (another term for taste) is another of our five senses that help us differentiate the
chemicals that make up food. The organ for taste is the tongue. Take a close look at your tongue
in a mirror and you will notice that it has a very rough, gross texture.

Below is a diagram of the tongue showing taste zones

The entire gustatory system is made up of the tongue, the papillae, taste buds and receptor cells.
The surface of the tongue is made up of about ten thousand taste buds, found on the papillae (the
tiny bumps on the tongue). Each taste bud has about 100 receptor cells.

Our taste buds are able to detect only five chemical stimuli: sweet, bitter, sour, salty and umami
(salts of certain acids that are associated with savory flavors). This ability of the tongue to taste
these five distinctive chemicals helps us to maintain a balance in our bodies, as well as prevent
us from taking in toxic substances. How does this work?

When a food item enters the mouth, the tongue receives it. Before it goes down your throat, it is
dissolved in saliva and that slips into all the tiny pores and grooves on the tongue. Here, special
nerve fibers located on the receptor cells are stimulated. They pick up the impulses in the food
and quickly send that signal to the brain for interpretation.

Scientists believe that the sense of smell has a profound impact on the sense of taste.

The Skin Senses

The organ for the human sense of touch is the skin. It is the largest sense organ because unlike
the others, it is not located at any specific place, but the entire body.

Our sense of touch uses many different receptors that help us to respond to different stimuli such
as pain, pressure, tension, temperature, texture, shape, weight, contours and vibrations. It helps
us move away when the brain perceives that there is danger.

Types of sensory receptors

Receptors that respond to heat and cold are known as Thermoreceptors. Nociceptors respond to
painful stimuli. Mechanoreceptors are those that respond to mechanical stimuli such as tension,
pressure or vibration. Chemoreceptors respond chemical stimuli such as taste and smell.
The entire network of sensory receptors does not only exist in the skin. It is distributed all over
the inside of the body such as muscle, bones and joints, hearts and blood vessels. All together, it
is known as the somatosensory system. A few places without sensory receptors are our hairs and
fingernails. This is why we feel no pain when we cut or trim them. For the purposes of this
lesson, we shall take a look at the receptors under our skin.

Here is a diagram of the skin and what is just under its surface.

Receptors that receive very fine signals (stimuli) are located very close to the surface of the skin
such as the epidermis and dermis. A little deeper, there are receptors that respond to stretching of
the skin, vibrations and pressure.

Like the other senses, the brain is the master organ that determines the meaning of the signals it
receives from each receptor. It decides if an object is cold or hot, rough or smooth, heavy or
light, wet or dry, sharp or blunt, you name them.

Kinesthesis Sense
- is the sensory system that tells us of position and movement of the parts of the body. This
sense is found in three distinct places:
- a) Muscles where free nerve endings surround small muscle spindles and which signal
strength of muscles.
- B) Tendons (Connect muscle to bone). Receptors here are nerve endings that serve as
specialized organs known as the Golgi tendon and which are stimulated when contracted.
- C) Joint Linings possibly the Pacinian corpuscles are stimulated when the limb moves.
Vestibular Sense
- The equilibratory senses deal with total body position in relations to gravity and with
motion of the body as whole. While kinesthesis deals with the relation of the body parts
 to each other and to external objects, the equilibratory sense deals with the orientation of
the body in space.
Organic Sensitivity
- Throughout our bodies, wherever blood vessels go, there are free nerve endings that act
as receptors. Some of these are for pain reception and others are for various other kinds
of sensation, such as the feeling of nausea or an upset stomach or other different feelings
that seem to come from inside us. All these sensations are grouped together and are called
organic sensitivity. Not much is known about these receptors or about their connections
in the central nervous system.

- END -
 REPORT in
General Psychology (PSY 111)
T / TH 5:30 7:00 P.M.

Different Sensory Processes

(SENSATION)

CONDE, DAVE JOSEPH D.

ESTAMO, LOUISE EIRA
BS ARCH 2 - A