Sensation Chapter 3

how does stimulation become sensation summary?
Sensory receptors become activated by stimuli in the environment by receiving

signals. The transmission of any message in the neurons of our body requires it to
be in the form of an action potential; the sensation must undergo conversion into
electrical signals.
sensory threshold
the sensory threshold is the weakest stimulus that an organism can sense. Unless

otherwise indicated, it is usually defined as the weakest stimulus that can be
detected half the time, for example, as indicated by a point on a probability curve.
[1] Methods have been developed to measure thresholds in any of the senses.
Sense Detection Threshold

Sight A candle flame at 30 miles on a clear, dark night
Hearing Someone breathing normally 20 feet away in a quiet room
Smell One drop of perfume diffused throughout a three-room apartment
Taste One teaspoon of sugar in 2 gallons of water
Touch A bee’s wing falling on the cheek from 1 centimeter above
signal detection theory
The leading explanation: signal detection theory, which at its most basic, states
that the detection of a stimulus depends on both the intensity of the stimulus and
the physical/psychological state of the individual. Basically, we notice things
based on how strong they are and on how much we're paying attention.
sensory adaptation summary
The response of neurons to natural stimulation depends on the past history of

stimulation. Sensitivity increases during periods of weak stimulation, whereas
when the background stimulation is strong the sensitivity is reduced. This form of
gain control is called sensory adaptation.
Transduction
The most fundamental function of a sensory system is the translation of a sensory
signal to an electrical signal in the nervous system. This takes place at the sensory
receptor. The change in electrical potential that is produced is called the receptor
potential. How is sensory input, such as pressure on the skin, changed to a
receptor potential? As an example, a type of receptor called a mechanoreceptor
possesses specialized membranes that respond to pressure. Disturbance of these
dendrites by compressing them or bending them opens gated ion channels in the
plasma membrane of the sensory neuron, changing its electrical potential. In the
nervous system, a positive change of a neuron’s electrical potential (also called
the membrane potential), depolarizes the neuron. Receptor potentials are graded
potentials: the magnitude of these graded (receptor) potentials varies with the
strength of the stimulus. If the magnitude of depolarization is sufficient (that is, if
membrane potential reaches a threshold), the neuron will fire an action potential.
In most cases, the correct stimulus impinging on a sensory receptor will drive
membrane potential in a positive direction, although for some receptors, such as
those in the visual system, this is not always the case.
why is transduction necessary for stimulation to become a sensation

Transduction is the process that converts a sensory signal to an electrical signal to
be processed in a specialized area in the brain.
Why is transduction necessary for sensation and perception?

Transduction represents the first step toward perception and is a translation
process where different types of cells react to stimuli creating a signal processed
by the central nervous system resulting in what we experience as a sensation.
Now please note two

important things. First, the lens of the eye reverses the image on the retina, so
everything to the left falls on the right side of your retina, and everything on the
right falls on the retina’s left side.
Second, the visual system splits the retinal image coming from each eye so that
part of the image coming from each eye crosses over to the opposite side of the
brain. As a result, objects appearing in the left part of the visual field of both eyes
are sent to the right hemisphere’s visual cortex for processing, while objects in
the right side of the visual field of both eyes are sent to the left visual cortex. In
general, the right hemisphere “sees” the left visual field, while the left
hemisphere “sees” the right visual field.
How are the senses alike and how are they different?
The senses all operate in much the same way, but each extracts different
information and sends it to its own specialized processing regions in the brain.
cycles per second (cps) or hertz (Hz).

sound intensity is expressed in units called
decibels (dB).
monosodium glutamate (MSG),
WATCH How Hearing Works
The process of hearing in a human ear animation can be viewed at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXt_gX2Srgo
1. Airborne sound waves are relayed to the inner ear. In this initial
transformation, vibrating waves of air enter the outer ear (also called the pinna)
and move through the ear canal to the eardrum, or tympanic membrane This
tightly stretched sheet of tissue transmits the vibrations to three tiny bones in the
middle ear: the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, named for their shapes. These bones
pass the vibrations on to the primary organ of hearing, the cochlea, located in the
inner ear.
2. The cochlea focuses the vibrations on the basilar membrane. Here in the
cochlea, the formerly airborne sound wave becomes “seaborne,” because the
coiled tube of the cochlea is filled with fluid. As the bony stirrup vibrates against
the oval window at the base of the cochlea, the vibrations set the fluid into wave
motion, much as a submarine sends a sonar “ping” through the water. As the fluid
wave spreads through the cochlea, it causes vibration in the basilar membrane, a
thin strip of hairy tissue running through the cochlea.
3. The basilar membrane converts the vibrations into neural messages. The
swaying of tiny hair cells on the vibrating basilar membrane stimulates sensory
nerve endings connected to the hair cells. The excited neurons, then, transform
the mechanical vibrations of the basilar membrane into neural activity.
4. Finally, the neural messages travel to the auditory cortex in the brain. Neural
signals leave the cochlea in a bundle of neurons called the auditory nerve. The
neurons from the two ears meet in the brain stem, which passes the auditory
information to both sides of the brain. Ultimately, the signals arrive in the
auditory cortex of the brain’s temporal lobe for higher-order processing.
timbre (pronounced TAM-b’r). Timbre is the property that enables you to
recognize a friend’s voice on the phone or distinguish between versions of the
same song sung by different artists.
The physical mechanisms that keep track of body position, movement, and
balance actually consist of two different systems, the vestibular sense and the
kinesthetic sense.
The vestibular sense is the body position sense that orients us with respect to
gravity. It tells us the posture of our bodies—whether straight, leaning, reclining,
or upside down. The vestibular sense also tells us when we are moving or how our
motion is changing. The receptors for this information are tiny hairs (much like
those we found in the basilar membrane) in the semicircular canals of the inner
ear. These hairs respond to our movements by detecting corresponding
movements in the fluid of the semicircular canals.
The kinesthetic sense, (or kinesthesis), the other sense of body position and
movement, keeps track of body parts relative to each other. Your kinesthetic
sense makes you aware of crossing your legs, for example, and tells you which
hand is closer to your cell phone when it rings. Kinesthesis provides constant
sensory feedback about what the muscles in your body are doing during motor
activities, such as whether to continue reaching for your cup of coffee or to stop
before you knock it over. Receptors for kinesthesis reside in the joints, muscles,
and tendons. These receptors, as well as those for the vestibular sense, which
connect to processing regions in the brain’s parietal lobes.
we do know that nasal receptors sense the shape of odor molecules We also
know that the nose’s receptor cells transduce information about the stimulus and
convey it to the brain’s olfactory bulbs, located on the underside of the brain just
below the frontal lobes
Unlike all the other senses, smell signals are not relayed through the thalamus,
suggesting that smell has very ancient evolutionary roots.
skin senses are connected to the somatosensory cortex located in the brain’s
parietal lobes.
synesthesia, which allows them to sense their worlds across sensory domains.
Some actually taste shapes—so that pears may taste “round” and grapefruit
“pointy”. Other synesthetes associate days of the week with colors—so that
Wednesday may be “green” and Thursday may be “red.” Their defining
characteristic is sensory experiences that combine one sense with another.
one kind of stimuli that our senses can’t detect?
we cannot hear the sound of frequencies above 20,000 Hz,

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how does stimulation become sensation summary?

Sensory receptors become activated by stimuli in the environment by receiving

the sensory threshold is the weakest stimulus that an organism can sense. Unless

Sense Detection Threshold

signal detection theory

sensory adaptation summary

The response of neurons to natural stimulation depends on the past history of

why is transduction necessary for stimulation to become a sensation

Why is transduction necessary for sensation and perception?

Now please note two

cycles per second (cps) or hertz (Hz).

one kind of stimuli that our senses can’t detect?

we cannot hear the sound of frequencies above 20,000 Hz,

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