Chap 6

What biological, psychological, and social-cultural influences affect our experience of pain?

1) BIOLOGICAL INFLUENCES There is no one type of stimulus that triggers pain (as light triggers vision). Instead, there are different nociceptors—sensory receptors in our skin, muscles, and organs that detect harmful temperatures, pressure, or chemicals and send pain signals The pain circuit Sensory receptors (nociceptors) respond to potentially damaging stimuli by sending an impulse to the spinal cord, which passes the message to the brain, which interprets the signal as pain. 2) PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES One powerful influence on our perception of pain is the attention we focus on it. Athletes, focused on winning, may play through the pain. Halfway through his lap of the 2012 Olympics 1600-meter relay, Manteo Mitchell broke one of his leg bones—and kept running. We also seem to edit our memories of pain, which often differ from the pain we actually experienced. 3) SOCIAL-CULTURAL INFLUENCES Our perception of pain varies with our social situation and our cultural traditions. We tend to perceive more pain when others seem to be experiencing pain (Symbaluk et al., 1997). This may help explain other apparent social aspects of pain, as when pockets of Australian keyboard operators during the mid-1980s suffered outbreaks of severe pain while typing or performing other repetitive work—without any discernible physical abnormalities (Gawande, 1998). Sometimes the pain in sprain is mainly in the brain— literally. When people felt empathy for another's pain, their own brain activity partly mirrored the activity of the actual brain in pain (Singer et al., 2004).

Five basic taste receptors / sensations

1) Sweet 2) Sour 3) Salty 4) Bitter 5) Umami - a meaty taste

Subliminal

Below one's absolute (50-50) threshold for conscious awareness

Closure

Closure occurs when an object is incomplete or a space is not completely enclosed. If enough of the shape is indicated, people perceive the whole by filling in the missing information.

Continuation

Continuation occurs when the eye is compelled to move through one object and continue to another object. Continuation occurs in the example above, because the viewer's eye will naturally follow a line or curve. The smooth flowing crossbar of the "H" leads the eye directly to the maple leaf.

Transduction

Conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds and smells, into neutral impulses our brain can interpret. 1) Receive sensory 2) Transform to neural impulses 3) Deliver information to the brain

Binocular Cues

Depth cues, such as retinal disparity, that depend on the use of two eyes - pg 219 Two eyes are better than one.

Sensory Adaptation

Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation. IE: a smell that you get used to when you walk in a room. This also allows us to focus on changes while there are other things happening. So we bore our receptors so they can be free to notice change - think about tv commercial volumes

Dissociation:

Dissociation: a split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with others. A dual processing state.

Weber's Law

Ernst Weber Law states that for an average person to perceive a difference, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum %(not a constant amount). Ie: 2 lights must differ by at least 8% intensity to see the difference. 2 objects must differ in weight by 2%

Cochlear implant

For now, the only way to restore hearing for people with nerve deafness is a sort of bionic ear—a cochlear implant, This electronic device translates sounds into electrical signals that, wired into the cochlea's nerves, convey information about sound to the brain (FIGURE 6.38). Cochlear implants in deaf kittens and human infants have seemed to trigger an "awakening" of the pertinent brain area

What processes are involved in sensing body position and movement?

How do we sense our body's position and movement? Important sensors in your joints, tendons, and muscles enable your kinesthesia—your sense of the position and movement of your body parts. Interacts with vision.

Hypnosis & how it works

Hypnosis: a social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts,: or behaviors will spontaneously occur. Psychologists have proposed two explanations for how hypnosis work: 1) Social Influence - One theory proposes that hypnosis is a form of normal influence. In this view, hypnosis is a by-product of normal social and mental processes. Like actors caught up in their roles, people begin to feel and behave in ways appropriate for "good hypnotic subjects." They may allow the hypnotist to direct their attention and fantasies away from pain. Another theory views hypnosis as a special dual-processing state of dissociation—a split between different levels of consciousness. 2) Dissociation theory offers an explanation for why people hypnotized for pain relief may show brain activity in areas that receive sensory information, but not in areas that normally process pain related information. It also seeks to explain why, when no one is watching, hypnotized people may carry out posthypnotic suggestions (which are made during hypnosis but carried out after the person is no longer hypnotized) (Perugini et al., 1998). Another form of dual processing— selective attention—may also play a role in hypnotic pain relief. Brain scans show that hypnosis increases activity in frontal lobe attention systems . And it reduces pain stimuli in the region that process pain.

Where are kinesthetic receptors and vestibular sense receptors located?

Kinesthetic receptors are located in our joints, tendons, and muscles. Vestibular sense receptors are located in our inner ear.

Gate control theory

Nonpainful input closes the gate to pain input. When tissue is injured, the small fibers activate and open the gate, and you feel pain. Large-fiber activity closes the gate, blocking pain signals and preventing them from reaching the brain. Thus, one way to treat chronic pain is to stimulate (by massage, electric stimulation, or acupuncture) "gate- closing" activity in the large neural fibers

Nystagmus

Nystagmus is a term to describe fast, uncontrollable movements of the eyes that may be: Side to side (horizontal nystagmus) Up and down (vertical nystagmus) Rotary (rotary or torsional nystagmus) Depending on the cause, these movements may be in both eyes or in just one eye. The term "dancing eyes" has been used to describe nystagmus.

Perceptual Constancy

Perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent color, brightness, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change

Perceptual Set

Perceptual Set - a set of mental tendencies and assumptions (how we view) that affects, a top-down from the brain, what we hear, taste, feel, and see.

Posthypnotic suggestion:

Posthypnotic suggestion: a suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors.

Sensation

Process of our sensory receptors and nervous system receives and represents stimulus energies from the environment

Proximity

Proximity occurs when elements are placed close together. They tend to be perceived as a group.

Cones

Retinal receptors that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. Cones detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations.

Rods

Retinal receptors that detect black, white and gray are sensitive to movement; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when the cones don't respond

Summary of senses

See picture

Sensation Vs Perception

Sensations are received and processed with sensory receptors and then the information is worked up to the higher levels of processing

Similarity

Similarity occurs when objects look similar to one another. People often perceive them as a group or pattern. The example above (containing 11 distinct objects) appears as single unit because all of the shapes have similarity. Unity occurs because the triangular shapes at the bottom of the eagle symbol look similar to the shapes that form the sunburst

Shape & Constancy

Sometimes an object whose actual shape cannot change seems to change shape with the angle of our view (FIGURE 6.33). More often, thanks to shape constancy, we perceive the form of familiar objects, Shape constancy A door casts an increasingly trapezoidal image on our retinas as it opens. Yet we still perceive it as rectangular. Myers, David G.; DeWall, C. Nathan. Exploring Psychology (Page 222). Worth Publishers. Kindle Edition. Myers, David G.; DeWall, C. Nathan. Exploring Psychology (Page 222). Worth Publishers. Kindle Edition.

What general processes are involved in taste?

Taste is a chemical sense. Inside each little bump on the top and sides of your tongue are 200 or more taste buds, each containing a pore that catches food chemicals. Into each taste bud pore, 50 to 100 taste receptor cells project antenna like hairs that sense food molecules. Some receptors respond mostly to sweet tasting molecules, others to salty-, sour-, umami-, or bitter-tasting ones, and each has a matching partner cell in the brain. It doesn't take much to trigger a response that alerts your brain's temporal lobe.

Processes involved in hearing

The Ear 6-17 How does the ear transform sound energy into neural messages? The intricate process that transforms vibrating air into nerve impulses, which our brain decodes as sounds, begins when sound waves enter the outer ear. An elaborate mechanical chain reaction begins as the visible outer ear channels the waves through the auditory canal to the eardrum, a tight membrane, causing it to vibrate (FIGURE 6.36). In the middle ear, a piston made of three tiny bones (the hammer, anvil, and stirrup) picks up the vibrations and transmits them to the cochlea, a snail-shaped tube in the inner ear. The incoming vibrations cause the cochlea's membrane (the oval window) to vibrate, jostling the fluid that fills the tube. This motion causes ripples in the basilar membrane, bending the hair cells lining its surface, not unlike the wind bending a wheat field. Hair cell movement triggers impulses in the adjacent nerve cells. Axons of those cells converge to form the auditory nerve, which sends neural messages (via the thalamus) to the auditory cortex in the brain's temporal lobe. From vibrating air to moving piston to fluid waves to electrical impulses to the brain: Voila! We hear.

Feature detectors

The ability to detect certain types of stimuli, like movements, shape, and angles, requires specialized cells in the brain called feature detectors. Without these, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to detect a round object, like a baseball, hurdling toward you at 90 miles per hour.

Priming

The activation, of unconsciously, or certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response

Intensity

The amount of energy in a light wave or sound wave, which influences what we perceive as brightness or loudness. Intensity is determined by the wave's amplitude (height)

phantom limb pain

The brain also creates pain, as it does in people's experiences of phantom limb sensations after a limb has been amputated. Their brain may misinterpret the spontaneous central nervous system (CNS) activity that occurs in the absence of normal sensory input: As the dreamer may see with eyes closed, so 7 in 10 such people may feel pain or movement in nonexistent limbs (Melzack, 1992, 2005). (Some may also try to step off a bed onto a phantom leg or to lift a cup with a phantom hand.) Even those born without a limb sometimes perceive sensations from the absent arm or leg. The brain, Melzack (1998) has surmised, comes prepared to anticipate "that it will be getting information from a body that has limbs."

Wavelength

The distance from the peak of one light wave or sound wave to the peak of the next. Electromagnetic wavelengths vary from the short blips of cosmic rays to the long pulses of radio transmission

Figure and Ground

The eye differentiates an object form its surrounding area. a form, silhouette, or shape is naturally perceived as figure (object), while the surrounding area is perceived as ground (background). Balancing figure and ground can make the perceived image clearer. Using unusual figure/ground relationships can add interest and subtlety to an image.

Difference thresholds

The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 % of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference (or jnd) Like listening to music low and it's turned up a little (5 decibels) vs a lot (110 decibels).

Absolute thresholds

The minimum stimulus energy needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time. Like smelling perfume or a candle. 50-50 points defines the absolute threshold... at what point you can smell the candle

Perception

The process of ORGANIZING AND INTERPRETING sensory information, so we can recognize meaningful objects and events.

Signal detection theory

Theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation and alertness.

What are the four skin senses?

What are the four skin senses and how do they impact us? 1. Pain: 2. Heat: Your body can sense that it is getting hotter than 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit and it knows that it needs to cool down and get away from the heat source. 3. Cold: Your body can sense that it is getting colder and it does everything it can to keep all of the warm blood vessels well away from the skins surface and to get your body away from the cold surface. 4. Pressure: Pressure is anything that weighs on your body. From picking something to having clothes on your body, you can sense it.

anomaly

When similarity occurs, an object can be emphasized if it is dissimilar to the others. This is called anomaly.

Can hypnosis relieve pain

Yes

Gestalt

an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts. Gestalt is a psychology term which means "unified whole". It refers to theories of visual perception developed by German psychologists in the 1920s. These theories attempt to describe how people tend to organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes when certain principles are applied.

Monocular Cues

depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone p 219 Monocular cues include size: distant objects subtend smaller visual angles than near objects, grain, size, and motion parallax.

Extrasensory perception

extrasensory perception (ESP) the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. The most testable and, for this discussion, most relevant ESP claims are • telepathy: mind-to-mind communication. • clairvoyance: perceiving remote events, such as a house on fire in another state. • precognition: perceiving future events, such as an unexpected death in the next month.

tongue

see the image!!!

Embodied Cognition

the influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments Examples: After holding a warm drink rather than a cold one, people were more likely to rate someone more warmly, feel closer to them, and behave more generously (IJzerman & Semin, 2009; Williams & Bargh, 2008). Physical warmth promotes social warmth. After being given the cold shoulder by others in an experiment, people judge the room as colder than do those treated warmly

Cognition

the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

Tinnitus

the phantom sound of ringing in the ears.

Synesthesia

the senses become joined in a phenomenon called synesthesia, where one sort of sensation (such as hearing sound) involuntarily produces another (such as seeing color). Thus, hearing music may activate color-sensitive cortex regions and trigger a sensation of color

parapsychology

the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis (the supposed ability to move objects by mental effort alone.)

Vestibular Sense - Balance

vestibular sense the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of BALANCE. Housed in the inner ear! Senses balance. This is the sense that is thrown off balance when we spin in circles and then suddenly stop. We feel like we are still spinning because the fluids in the inner ear have not settled into place - sending the signal to the brain that we are still spinning. A companion vestibular sense monitors your head's (and thus your body's) position and movement. The biological gyroscopes for this sense of equilibrium are two structures in your inner ear. spinning.

Kinesthesia

your sense of the position and movement of your body parts