Perception

Exam 1: 86
Exam 2: CH 6-9
 Defining
Sensation/Perception
• Sensation—transduction (detection)
changing of physical energy/external
stimuli into neural impulses.
• Perception--organizing/processing
information (interpretation)

– Affected by individuals history of

learning experiences
 Nature/Nurture Issues
• Imagine the world at birth
• Empiricists/ Constructivists --comes
from experience through learning, babies
are born with a “blank slate.” (nurture)
• Nativists--come with some “built-
in/innate” abilities & maturational
programs are the driving forces in
perceptual development
– knowledge very similar to adults in perceptual
abilities (maturation/biology)
 Measuring Sensory/Perceptual
Abilities--Habituation
•Habituation- is the process of learning to become
bored with a stimulus if it’s repeatedly presented.

•We MUST learn this or we would never be able to

concentrate
•studied~ testing how long children can pay attention.
•Newborns have this capacity Initial Stimulus New Stimulus
25

20
Responding

15

10

0
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 4 Trial 5
Measuring Sensory/Perceptual
Abilities--Preferential
Attention
• Presents 2 stimuli to infants &
measure the length of time it
spends looking at each.
– Indicates that the infant
discriminates btw the two
• If he looks at one longer than the
other it means:
– (1) they can differentiate
– (2) the show preference to one
stimulus over another
 Measuring Sensory/Perceptual
Abilities, Cont.
• Evoked Potentials- disc on head to see
where neural firings occur, -to what
– Good for testing babies for mental/neural complications

• Other ways specific to sensory modality

(visual scanning)
– To see where an infant is looking

• Operant Conditioning-
– shown pic of mom so that the suck at a certain rate, shows
recognition of mom if they suck more/rigorously.
– Young infants not easily conditioned.
 Infant sucking video
• Infants preference for human faces
due to affinity for patterned stimuli
with contour & some complexity.
 Vision
• Transduction—retina
– Inside the eye
• Rods- dark vision, in periphery
• Cones- light vision, central
• Basic Abilities
– Brightness/color
– Visual acuity (perceive detail)
• newborns, 40x worse than adult.
• Infants have a more fixed focus
(about 8 inches) from their face.
Caused by problems with visual
accommodations
– Visual accommodation (focusing)
ability to adjust the lens of the eye
by changing shape as objects
change distance
 Vision, cont.
• Perceptual preferences
– Moderately complex patterns
– Contrast
– Movement
– 2-3 mo. Prefer more normal human
faces as they develop mental
representations for how it should
look. Color vision matures as well.

• Externatility effect (movie)

– (up to 2 months)
– “Visual cicadae”- little
jumps when someone reads
or w/ infants, passing lines
in front of their face -if
these cease it means they
can no longer notice these
differences
 Vision, cont.
• Depth perception
– Binocular cues
– Monocular cues
Size consistency–
recognition that an
object is the same
size despite changes
in distances from the
eyes.
 Depth Perception, cont. (movie)
• Gibson & Walk
• Visual Cliff (classical conditioning)
– Slow heart rate indicates interest
or perceived difference in depth.
– Intuitive Theories: come
equipped with organized sys. of
knowledge that allow them to
make sense of the world
 Hearing
• Transduction--in cochlea
• Newborns can hear better than they see,
they can also localize sound
• Sensory capabilities
– Wide range of pitches, loudness
– Phoneme: perception (basic speech sounds)
• P. Eimas (”ba”/”pa”) recognized difference 2-3 mo.
– Sound localization
• May be reflexive at birth
 Hearing Preferences in
Newborns
• “Cat in the Hat” study: infants read to in order to
see if they would suck more to a story they’d heard
before.
– Able to recognize sound patterns, preference for
mother’s voice due to constant bombardment and
proximity to, more attentive to female vocals.
• Prefer auditory stimulus to be relatively complex
• Sound patterns--pauses in music
• Loose sensitivity to sound contrasts in language
they’re starting to learn the 1st year
 Taste
• Different tastes/facial expressions
• Can distinguish sweet, salty, sour,
bitter (savory/fat?)
• Sweet taste calming, will swallow
more amniotic fluid w/ higher sugar
content
• “taste gene”
• Greater exposure to variety of flavor
in infancy- led to more Sensory receptors for
adventuresome eaters later on taste -taste buds-
located mainly on the
tongue, respond to
chemical molecules:
salt, etc.
 Taste and Smell Movie

• Even newborns can differentiate btw

good and bad smells.
• Have preference for human milk over
formula
• Olfaction receptors are located in the
nasal passage
 Smell (Olfaction)
• Breast-pad study: babies can tell the
difference btw mom and another female.
• Underarm-pad study: could differentiate
mom’s B.O. on the pad & another persons
smell
• Caregivers recognize odors:
mothers/fathers can distinguish their own
babies scent… find fecal matter of own
progeny less offensive.
 Skin Senses
• Ability to senses that detect
motion among first to develop.
• Touch
– Rooting reflex
– Habituated to touch
– Develops in cephalocaudal (head to
toe) direction
• Temperature
• Pain
– Circumcision, local anesthesia
 Intermodal Perception
• Different sense modalities
• Some ability present at birth
• Cross-modal perception improves: recognize
through one sense what is familiar through
another
– Researchers have trouble demonstrating on
newborns, dependent on task variables
– btw oral and visual around 3 months of age
– Impressions from different senses are fused
early in life.
 Early Influences on
Perceptual Development
• Early stimulation
– Vision
– Hearing
– Sensitive period: individual is more
affected by experiences & thus has a higher
lvl of plasticity .
– Fact that perceptual development
occurs so quickly, as if innate, is used
as an argument for “Nature” side.
• Cultural Variation
– Drawings by 10-15 yr.old
children (New Guinea)
 Early Influences, cont.
• Gibson--Infant’s active role, ltd. to
biological
– Three phases
1. (birth to 4 months) - Explore immediate
surroundings :Looking, listening, mouthing
2. (5-7months) -More interested w/ objects
around them: Voluntary grasping, closer
attention to detail, initially reflexive but
improves with gains in cortary control
3. (8 or 9 months) –Exploring environment:
crawling, fully examining objects
 Development of Attention--
Childhood
• Attention span lengthens
– Child once “captured”; older “directed
toward”
– Due to increased myelination (insulation
to sped up neural impulses)
• More control of attention
– Selective: deliberate concentration
– Systematic
 Later life
• Raised sensory thresholds-- lowest pt a stimulus can
be detected.
• Vision
– Presbyopia (thickening of lens), contracts the muscles as
they can’t really adjust focus, need bifocals.
– Age related Macular degeneration: damaged retinal
cells in central visual area, leading cause of blindness
– Cataracts, damage to the nerve causing blindness
– Glaucoma, fluid pressure on the eye damages optic nerve
• Hearing
– Presbycusis: pblms with the aging ear
• Cochlear hair cells serves as auditory receptors get
damaged
• Less sensitive to high pitches
• Exposure to loud sounds (Tinnitus/ ringing)
 Later life, cont.

• Taste, smell also less sensitive (more salt

when you get older)
• Temperature
– Less likely to notice changes
• Pain
– Weak pain--less sensitive, chronic
• Bottom line--most declines are mild; older
adults usually compensate
 Critical Thinking Issue:
• Should older adults be required to
pass driving tests more frequently?
• Should family members deprive an
elder of their right to drive?
• Highest rate of accidents occur when
students learn to drive… much Older
ppl are now having more accidents.