Connections: Does the Brain Record Sensations Without Our Conscious Awareness?
How much of what we see or hear, taste, smell, or touch, is actually recorded by the brain without our conscious awareness? One method psychologists use to study this phenomenon is to study people who have had damage to the primary visual cortex. Cl...
Connections: Features Detected by Individual Neurons
In recent decades, researchers like David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel have been able to chart patterns of neural activity in relation to certain stimuli. Too often, however, research is focused on a single neuron rather than populations of neurons list...
Connections: Sensory Signals: Destination Cortex
The ultimate destination for sensory signals is the cerebral cortex. The cortex is a crumpled sheet, a few millimeters thick, wrapped around the exterior of the brain. In the primary visual cortex there is a hierarchy of processing with the represen...
Connections: Sensing the World: The Difference Threshold
Humans, as well as other animal species, have the ability to detect small variations in stimuli (the difference threshold) . The fact that sensitivity is reduced after sustained exposure to stimuli, like the clothes a person is wearing, allows a per...
Connections: World of Sensory Stimuli, A
As attuned as people think they are to the world, their senses take in only a fraction of the energy that surrounds them. Most animal species have many more than the five primary senses ascribed to humans. Many animals have polarized filters that al...
Connections: Sensing the World: The Absolute Threshold
The minimum stimulation necessary to detect reliability a particular stimuli is called the absolute threshold. Thresholds can vary depending on a person's experience and expectations, or level of fatigue. A remarkable quality of the human mind is it...
Connections: Role of the Thalamas, The
Except for olfaction, input signals traveling along sensory pathways are routed through relay areas in the thalamus. Beyond serving as a way station, the role of the thalamus is a source of debate. Parts of the thalamus are thought to be involved in...
Connections: Connecting Despite the Loss of Sight or Hearing
Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, said that to her deafness was more bothersome than blindness. Her blindness, she said, kept her from things; deafness separated her from people. For David Myers who is on a trajectory toward complete deafne...
Perception: the theories
Can perception be explained in terms of sensation? In this program, the senses, including proprioception, are described; the structuralist, gestalt, constructivist, and direct perception theories are critically analyzed, focusing on both their stren...