Sensation

cocktail party

d; describes the the ability to focus your hearing on one specific thing even though noise is all around you. It is named such because this occurs when you are at a party- you can focus on the conversation you are having with the person close to you and can ignore all of the other noise and conversation going on around you. Your brain helps you selectively focus on the person you are talking too and 'mutes' the other conversation, music, and general noise around you.

transduction

d; refers to changing physical energy into electrical signals (neural impulses) that can make their way to the brain. e;your ears receive energy (sound waves) and transduce (or convert) this energy into neural messages that make their way to your brain and are processed as sounds.

sensory habituation

d; the decrease of a response to a repeated eliciting stimulus that is not due to sensory adaptation or motor fatigue. e; cocktail party

sensation

d; the neural synaptic firing of our receptors and our brain's interpretation of these firings. e; when you touch something, receptors send impulses that travel to the spinal cord and then into the brain for interpretation. Without both parts (the signal being sent or the interpretation), there is no sensation. The signals being sent and interpreted are what we call sensation

perception

d;process in which we understand sensory information e; Illusions are powerful examples of how we misinterpret sensory information and perceive information incorrectly.

sensory adaptation

d;reduced sensitivity to stimulation that results from repeated presentations of that stimulation. e; We get used to things. This goes for lots of things in life including smells, sounds, sights, games, people, situations. seems like after a while we get used to everything.