Sensation and Perception

A neurological disorder characterized by the inability to recognize faces.

• Anosognosia

• Prosopagnosia

• Primary Visual Agnosia

• Phonagnosia

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

• Perception

• Transduction

• Priming

• Sensation

The process by which our brain organizes and interprets sensory information, transforming it into meaningful objects and events.

• Perception

• Sensation

• Transduction

• Priming

Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information.

• Sensation

• Bottom-up processing

• Transduction

• Top-down processing

Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.

• Top-down processing

• sensation

• perception

• subliminal

Changing one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret.

• Transduction

• Stimuli

• Sensation

• Subliminal

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

• Priming

• Perception

• Sensation

• Absolute Threshold

Below our absolute threshold for conscious awarness.

• AbsoluteThreshold

• Threshold

• Subliminal

• Priming

The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percet of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a jus noticeable difference

• Difference Threshold

• Sensory Adaptation

• Weber's Law

• Stimuli

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

• Sensory Adaptation

• Stimuli

• Threshold

• Weber's Law