Sensation and Perception

Bennett L. Schwartz received his PhD in 1993 from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Since then he has been at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, Florida, where he is currently professor of psychology. He is author or editor of 10 published books as well as over 70 journal articles and chapters. His textbook Memory: Foundations and Applications, fourth edition (SAGE), was published in 2020. He has won several teaching awards at FIU and currently teaches courses in memory, cognition, and sensation and perception. His main research area is metacognition and memory, but he has also conducted research in diverse areas that range from visual perception to evolutionary psychology, to the language of thought, and to memory in nonhuman primates. Schwartz currently serves as the editor in chief of New Ideas in Psychology. John H. Krantz received his psychology PhD from the University of Florida. After graduate school, he worked in industry at Honeywell on visual factors related to cockpit displays. In 1990, he returned to academia, taking a position at Hanover College. John has done extensive research in vision, human factors, computers in psychology, and the use of the Web as a medium for psychological research. He has been program chair and president of the Society for Computers in Psychology and editor of the journal Behavior Research Methods. John was the first to develop Web experiments in psychological science and led the way on techniques for sending multimedia via the Web. He has served as a faculty associate for The Psychology Place, developing interactive learning activities, and created psychology’s first global website for the Association for Psychological Science (APS). In addition, he is an author for both the Cognitive Toolkit and PsychSim 6. John is well known for his widely used online psychological experiments related to sensation, perception, and cognition. His current research is focused on using the Web for psychological research and modeling the visual system.

Chapter 1: What is Perception?
Introduction: Why is the Study of Sensation and Perception Important?
Why Is This Psychology?
The Myth of Five Senses
The Basics of Perception
The History of Sensation and Perception
Applications of Sensation and Perception and Avoiding Collisions
Chapter 2: Research Methodology
The Measures and Methods of Psychophysics
In Depth: Psychophysics In Assessment: Hearing Tests and Vision Tests
Chapter 3: Visual System: The Eye
Light
The Eye
Anatomy of the Retina
The Duplex Theory of Vision
Retinal Ganglion Cells and Receptive Fields
Refractive Errors and Diseases of the Eye and Perception
Chapter 4: Visual System: The Brain
The Optic Nerve and Chiasm
The Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN)
The Superior Colliculus
Primary Visual Cortex
The Organization of V1
V2 and Beyond
Functional Pathways in Visual Cortex
Where does Vision Come Together?
Development of the Visual System
In Depth: Blindsight
Chapter 5: Object Perception
What is Object Perception?
Top-down Processing and Bottom-up Processing
Perceptual Organization
Recognition by Components
The Neuroanatomy and Physiology of Object Perception
In Depth: Vision and Animacy
Chapter 6: Color Perception
Wavelengths of Light and Color
Hue, Saturation, Lightness, and Brightness
Additive and Subtractive Color Mixing
The Retina and Color
The Trichromatic Theory of Color Vision
The Opponent theory of Color Perception
Color Deficiency
Constancy: Lightness and Color Constancy
Chapter 7: Depth and Size Perception
Oculomotor Cues
Monocular Depth Cues
Motion Cues
Binocular Cues to Depth
Size Perception
In Depth: Stereopsis and Sports
Chapter 8: Movement and Action
How Do We Perceive Motion?
The Neuroscience of Vision and Motion
Form Perception and Biological Motion
Action
In Depth: Motion Illusions
Chapter 9: Visual Attention
Selective Attention: Covert Attention
Features of Attention
The Anatomy and Physiology of Attention
Developmental Aspects of Visual Attention
In Depth: Awareness and Visual Consciousness
Chapter 10: The Auditory System
Sound as Stimulus
Anatomy of the Ear
Central Pathway and Brain Anatomy of Hearing
Hearing Loss, Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants
In Depth: Biosonar in Bats and Dolphins
Chapter 11: The Auditory Brain and Sound Localization
Central Pathway and Brain Anatomy of Hearing
Auditory Localization
Auditory Scene Analysis
In Depth: Biosonar in Bats and Dolphins
Chapter 12: Speech Perception
The Human Voice as Stimulus
Speech
Phonemes
Variability in the Acoustics of Phonemes
The Development of Phoneme Perception
Speech Perception and the Brain
In Depth: Hearing Loss and Speech Perception
Chapter 13: Music Perception
The Acoustics of Music
The Neuroscience of Music
Learning, Culture, and Music Perception
In Depth: Musical Illusions
Chapter 14: Touch and Pain
The Skin and Its Receptors
Proprioception: Perceiving Limb Position
Thermoreception
Nociception and the Perception of Pain
Neural Pathways
The Neurochemistry of Pain: Endogenous Opioids
The Perception of Itch
Haptic Perception
Vestibular System
Application: Braille Reading in the Blind
In Depth: Electroreception in Fish
Chapter 15: Olfaction and Taste
The Olfactory System
Olfactory Perception
Taste
In Depth: Acquired Tastes