76 test questions with answers

Summary Chapters 1 - 15 Sensation and Perception - 7th Edition Jeremy M. Wolfe

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For: Maastricht University 2025

• 76 test questions with answers
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Chapter 1: Introduction

Sensation and perception -Sensation: the ability to detect a stimulus and, perhaps, to turn that detection into a private experience

-Perception: the act of giving meaning to a detected sensation

-Condillac: mental life relies on information from our senses

Methods used in the study of the senses -Thresholds

-Scaling: measuring private experience

oQuale: in philosophy, a private conscious experience of sensation or perception -Signal detection theory – measuring difficult decisions -Sensory neuroscience -Neuroimaging – an image of the mind Thresholds and the dawn of psychophysics -Dualism: the idea that the mind has an existence separate from the material world of the body -Materialism: the idea that the only thing that exists is matter, and that all things, including the mind and consciousness, are the results of interactions between bits of matter -Panpsychism: the idea that the mind exist as a property of all matter, that is, that all matter has consciousness (Fechner) -Psychophysics: the science of defining quantitative relationships between physical and psychological (subjective) events (Fechner)

-Two-point touch threshold: the minimum distance at which two stimuli are just

perceptible as separate (Weber) -Just noticeable difference/ difference threshold: the smallest detectable difference between two stimuli, or the minimum change in a stimulus that enables it to be correctly judged as different from a reference stimulus (Weber) -Weber’s law: the principle describing the relationship between stimulus and resulting sensation that says the JND is a constant fraction of the comparison stimulus (e.g. 1:100

for length, 1:40 for weight)

oClear objective measurement, we know how much the stimulus varied and the observer can either tell that it changed or not -Fechner’s law: a principle describing the relationship between stimulus and resulting sensation that says the magnitude of subjective sensation(S) increases proportionally to the logarithm of the stimulus intensity(R) (S = k log R) oDescribes the relationship between mind and matter oThe smallest detectable change in a stimulus can be considered as a unit of the mind, because this is the smallest bit of change that is perceived oAssumes that all JNDs are perceptually equivalent, which turns out to be incorrect -Absolute threshold: the min amount of a stimulation necessary for a person to detect a stimulus 50% of the time 3 / 4

oDetected 50% of the time due to the variability in the nervous system, stimuli near the threshold will be detected sometimes and missed other times  there is no hard boundary Psychophysical methods -Method of constant stimuli: a psychophysical method in which many stimuli ranging from rarely to almost always perceivable, are presented one at a time and participants respond

to each presentation: yes/no or same/different

-Method of limits: a psychophysical method in which the particular dimension of a stimulus, or the difference between two stimuli, is varied incrementally until the participant responds differently

oTones are presented in increasing or decreasing intensity; increasing: report

when you first hear the tone; decreasing: report when the tone is no longer

heard. The threshold is set at the average of the crossover points -Method of adjustment: a method of limits in which the participant controls the change in the stimulus Scaling methods and supertasters

-Magnitude estimation: a psychophysical method in which the participant assigns

values according to perceived magnitudes of the stimuli oSteven’s power law: a principle describing the relationship between stimulus and resulting sensation that says the magnitude of subjective sensation(S) is proportional to the stimulus magnitude(I) raised to an exponent(b) ( S = aI b ) Measures subjective ratings, and we can check whether these are reasonable and consistent but there is no way of knowing whether they are objectively right or wrong -Cross-modality matching: the ability to match the intensities of sensations that come from different sensory modalities. This ability enables insight into sensory differences.For example, a listener might adjust the brightness of a light until it matches the loudness of a tone, the relationship between modalities appears to be similar across individuals Signal detection theory -Signal detection theory: a psychophysical theory that quantifies the response of an observer to the presentation of a signal in the presence of noise (internal noise, the static in your nervous system). Measures obtained from a series of presentations are sensitivity (d’) and criterion of the observer oCriterion: an internal threshold set by the observer. If the internal response is above the criterion, the observer gives one response (yes) and below the criterion the observer gives another response (no) Correct rejection, hit, false alarm, miss

oSensitivity: a value that defines the ease with which an observer can tell the

difference between the presence and absence of a stimulus or the difference between stimulus 1 and stimulus 2 (d’ or d-prime)

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