Basic principles of Sensation
The process by which sensory receptors and the nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from the environment.
What is sensation?
This structure is the transparent outer covering of the eye that bends light to help provide focus.
Answer: What is the cornea?
This part of the ear is a coiled, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear where sound waves trigger nerve impulses.
Answer: What is the cochlea?
These sensory organs on the tongue contain receptor cells that respond to basic taste qualities such as sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.
Answer: What are taste buds?
This sense includes the detection of pressure, warmth, cold, and pain through receptors in the skin.
Answer: What is the somatosensory or touch sense?
The process involves converting stimulus energies, such as light or sound waves, into neural impulses that the brain can interpret.
Answer: What is transduction?
These receptor cells are concentrated in the fovea, function best in daylight or well-lit conditions, and are responsible for color vision and fine detail.
Answer: What are cones?
These tiny bones transmit vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear.
—the hammer, anvil, and stirrup—
This term refers to the sense of smell, which involves receptors in the nasal cavity sending information directly to the brain’s olfactory bulb.
Answer: What is olfaction?
This term refers to the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts, using receptors in muscles, tendons, and joints.
Answer: What is kinesthesia or the kinesthetic sense?
This concept is defined as the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.
Answer: What is the absolute threshold?
This term refers to the point where the optic nerve leaves the eye and no receptor cells are located, so no image can be detected there.
Answer: What is the blind spot?
This type of hearing loss is caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea, such as the eardrum or ossicles.
Answer: What is conduction hearing loss?
This fifth basic taste quality is associated with the savory flavor of glutamate-rich foods like meats and cheeses.
Answer: What is umami?
This sense of body movement and balance relies on fluid-filled semicircular canals and otolith organs in the inner ear.
Answer: What is the vestibular sense?
This theory explains how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus amid background stimulation, emphasizing that detection depends on experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness.
Answer: What is signal detection theory?
According to this theory of color vision, the retina contains three types of color receptors—most sensitive to red, green, and blue—which combine to produce the perception of other colors.
Answer: What is the Young–Helmholtz trichromatic theory?
This theory of pitch explains how we hear high-pitched sounds by linking the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea’s membrane is stimulated.
Answer: What is place theory?
Unlike other senses, information from this chemical sense does not first pass through the thalamus before reaching cortical areas.
Answer: What is smell (olfaction)?
According to this theory, the spinal cord contains a neurological mechanism that can block or allow pain signals to pass to the brain, explaining why psychological factors can influence pain perception.
Answer: What is the gate-control theory of pain?
This term refers to the diminished sensitivity that results from constant, unchanging stimulation, such as no longer noticing the feel of your watch on your wrist.
Answer: What is sensory adaptation?
These specialized neurons in the visual cortex respond to specific features of a stimulus, such as edges, angles, or movement
Answer: What are feature detectors?
For lower pitches, this theory suggests that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, allowing us to sense pitch.
Answer: What is the frequency theory?
The interaction of smell and taste that creates the overall flavor experience of food exemplifies this concept, in which one sense influences another.
Answer: What is sensory interaction?
This term describes the phenomenon in which an amputee continues to experience sensations, including pain, in a limb that is no longer present, highlighting the brain’s role in constructing sensory experience.
Answer: What is phantom limb pain or phantom limb sensation?