4 Replies to “Psychology 3196 (Winter 2018) – Sensation and Perception”

  1. Yes, that’s how I define S & P….. an “understanding, recognition, interpretation” of what you’re hearing, seeing etc is P.

    Laurie

  2. I had a student ask the diff btwn sensory adaptation and habituation….

    I wasn’t sure….i suggested that sensory adaptation was the result of decreased neural activation, and habituation was a decrease in both neural processing (though perhaps at to a lesser extent) AND a decrease in the processing (i.e, perception) of the slightly-above-baseline neural activity) . What say you? They could be the same damn thing for all I know….

    1. The key thing for me is that habituation involves a decrease in responding to a discreetly presented stimulus. So, say you’re using a startle reflex, you play a loud noise, get less responding over time. Kandel’s work points out that with habituation you get a decrease in the Ca+ current at the axon hillock of the sensory neuron, so learning at the neuron level, which is frakking cool.

      Also, habituation shows all the characteristics of other types of learning, like generalization, savings, over learning (habituation below zero, which is the name of my vertical horizon cover band…) and other stuff you see in everything from classical to operant conditioning.

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