Select one of the five major senses and use it as an example to explain the perceptual process. Describe the physical stimulus, how it reaches the sensory receptors, the process of transduction, and the pathway up to the brain.
What will be an ideal response?
The student should describe one of the five perceptual processes below:
1. The Physical Stimulus: (a) Vision: The physical stimulus is light in the visible spectrum, with characteristics of wavelength, intensity, and saturation. (b) Audition: The physical stimulus is sound wave vibrations, with characteristics of frequency and intensity. (c) Taste: The physical stimuli are chemicals, with five primary tastes-sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and savory. (d) Smell: The physical stimuli are odor molecules (chemical). (e) Touch: The physical stimulus is pressure or temperature (warm and cold).
2. How the Physical Stimulus Reaches the Sensory Receptors: (a) Vision: The light stimulus enters the eye through the cornea and travels through the pupil and the lens to reach the retina, where the photoreceptors are housed. (b) Audition: The sound waves are funneled into the ear by the pinna and travel down the auditory canal to the eardrum, which transmits the information to the ossicles in the middle ear. The ossicles transmit the sound wave information to the cochlea, which houses the basilar membrane, on which the hair cells are found. (c) Taste: The chemical stimulus reaches the papillae, which contains the taste buds, which house the taste receptors, of which there are five types-sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and savory. (d) Smell: The odor molecules travel in the nasal cavity to the olfactory receptor cells. (e) Touch: The touch stimulus (pressure, warmth, or cold) stimulates the receptors in the skin.
3. The Process of Transduction: (a) Vision: Light is absorbed by the photoreceptors (rods and cones) and transformed into a neural message. (b) Audition: Hairlike projections (cilia) from the hair cells bend and stretch with the presence of the sound wave stimulus, causing transduction in the hair cells. (c) Taste: When the chemical stimulus reaches the receptor sites of the taste receptors, transduction takes place. (d) Smell: Transduction occurs when the odor molecules reach the receptor sites of the olfactory receptor cells. (e) Touch: The touch stimulus stimulates receptors in the skin, which is where transduction takes place.
4. The Pathway to the Brain: (a) Vision: The optic nerve carries information from the eye, through the optic chiasm, through the thalamus, and to the visual cortex, where higher-order processing takes place. (b) Audition: Information from the auditory receptors leaves the ears through the auditory nerve, and the projections go through the thalamus up to the auditory cortex. (c) Taste: Projections from the taste receptors carry the information through the thalamus to the brain, where information about taste is processed. (d) Smell: Projections from olfactory receptor neurons exit the nose through the olfactory nerve and project to the temporal and frontal lobes in the brain. (e) Touch: Projections from the pressure and temperature receptors in the skin send projections through the thalamus, which then project to the somatosensory cortex.
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