2. What are the 5 senses ? Sensation = stimulation of sensory receptors and the transmission of sensory information to the central nervous system (spinal cord & brain) – Sensory receptors are located in sensory organs such as the eyes and ears – Stimulation is automatic

3. Select a partner (someone next to you). Have them close their eyes. Make sure your partner keeps their eyes closed and do not tell them what you are doing.

4. Palm Readers: INSTRUCTIONS: With your finger acting as a “pencil,” write one word in the palm of their hands to describe how you see/view/perceive them (keep it positive!). Make sure you are writing one big letter slowly at a time, so each letter basically goes over the other. See if your partner can guess what you just did. How many people guessed right? Switch.

5. Perception = the psychological process through which the brain organizes the sensory information to make it meaningful. – Perception reflects learning, expectations, experiences, and attitudes How did expectations and background knowledge affect perception in the activity?

6. Absolute threshold – the weakest amount of a stimulus that can be sensed (borderline between undetectable & detectable) – Ex: Hearing test – General absolute thresholds have been determined for humans Many animals are much more sensitive than humans to sensory stimuli – Our absolute thresholds for different stimuli vary from person to person. (some more sensitive to certain sensory stimuli than others) Differences stem from psychological and biological factors

7. Difference Threshold – the minimum amount of difference that can be detected between two stimuli – People’s individual difference thresholds vary slightly – Ex: when you notice that the TV volume has been turned up – Ex: when you notice different shades of blue side by side

8. ABSOLUTE THRESHOLD FOR SENSORY PERCEPTION SENSESTIMULUSRECEPTORSABSOLUTE THRESHOLD Difference threshold example? VISION Electromagn etic energy Rods & cones in retina A candle flame viewed from a distance of 30 miles on a dark night HEARING Sound waves Hair cells of inner ear The ticking of a watch from about 20 feet away in a quiet room SMELL Chemical substances in air Receptor cells in nose About one drop of perfume diffused throughout a small house TASTE Chemical substances in saliva Taste buds on tongue About 1 teaspoon of sugar dissolved in 2 gallons of water TOUCH Pressure on skin Nerve endings in skin The wing of a fly falling on a cheek from a distance of less than half an inch

9. SENSORY ADAPTION The process by which we become more sensitive to weak stimuli (seeing more clearly in dark theatre) and less sensitive to unchanging stimuli (lying on the beach the waves blend in to the background or traffic). Some stimuli do not display this adaptation – Ex: pain

10. Signal-Detection Theory – Approach that we do not passively receive info from our senses – we make decisions about what we perceive – We use a method of distinguishing sensory stimuli that takes into account the stimuli’s strengths, as well as variables such as setting, physical state, mood, attitude, etc. – We focus on what we consider important, and: detect more intense stimuli more easily than less intense stimuli. A more sensitive person requires less stimulus intensity When a person is unsure if the stimulus was present, they will decide based on what kind of mistake in judgment is worse: to say that no stimulus was present when there actually was or to say that there was a stimulus when there was none. Examples: * Bell (beginning vs. end of period), teacher lecture, listening to the bulletin, waiting for important visitor or caller PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY: Participants were told to listen for the sound of a bomber jet. They were told they would be penalized for false alarms and for missing an actual sound. Participants thought a miss meant a failure to detect the bomber, thereby resulting in possible deaths. As a result, participants had more false alarms than misses.

11. QUICKWRITE: A Day Without _____ Divide your paper into 5 sections. Select one sense at a time. Imagine how losing that sense would affect your life. Describe how your every day life would change without that sense. How would your experience of the world be diminished? How would it be enhanced? Share out. Which sense do you feel is the most “important?” Which is the least “important?”

12. WORD CLOUD On a piece of paper, create a word cloud of the words you heard in the reading. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text (with size and/or color).