Sensation and Perception

Learn more about how we sense and perceive the world around us by understanding the connections between mind, brain, and behavior in the realm of sensation and perception conveyed through classic findings and cutting-edge research included in Sensation and Perception.

Steven Yantis is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, with secondary appointments in the Departments of Cognitive Science and Neuroscience.  He studied experimental psychology as an undergraduate at the University of Washington in Seattle, and later he received a PhD in Experimental Psychology at the University of Michigan. Following a year as postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, he joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University, where he has been ever since. Yantis has research interests that include visual perception, attention, and cognition.  Members of the Yantis laboratory measure behavior (response time, eye movements) and brain activity (functional MRI) as people carry out tasks that probe perception and attention. He has taught a variety of courses in human perception and attention for more than two decades. In Visual Perception: Essential Readings (Psychology Press, 2000), Yantis assembled 25 articles published over 100 years that laid the foundations of the field, and he is the volume editor of the Stevens Handbook of Experimental Psychology (3e): Volume 1: Sensation and Perception (Wiley, 2002). Yantis received the Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association in 1994 and the Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences in 1996.

BRIEF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Foundations
Chapter 2: Light and the Eyes
Chapter 3: The Visual Brain
Chapter 4: Recognizing Visual Objects
Chapter 5: Perceiving Color
Chapter 6: Perceiving Depth
Chapter 7: Perceiving Motion
Chapter 8: Perception for Action
Chapter 9: Attention and Awareness
Chapter 10: Sound and the Ears
Chapter 11: The Auditory Brain and Perceiving Auditory Scenes
Chapter 12: Perceiving Speech and Music
Chapter 13: The Body Senses
Chapter 14: Olfaction: Perceiving Odors
Chapter 15: Gustation: Perceiving Tastes and Flavors

DETAILED CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Foundations

Vignette: "I’m Having a Stroke!"

World, Brain, and Mind

The Perceptual Process

Three Main Types of Questions

How Many Senses Are There?

Evolution and Perception

• Check Your Understanding

Exploring Perception by Studying Behavior: Psychophysics

Absolute Threshold

Method of Adjustment

Method of Constant Stimuli

Staircase Method

Difference Threshold

Method of Adjustment

Method of Constant Stimuli

Weber’s Law

Psychophysical Scaling

Fechner’s Law

Stevens’s Power Law

• Check Your Understanding

Exploring Perception by Studying Neurons and the Brain

Neurons and Neural Signals

Action Potentials

Transmitting Signals Between Neurons

The Human Brain

• Check Your Understanding

Cognitive Neuropsychology

Functional Neuroimaging

Electroencephalography and Magnetoencephalography

Positron Emission Tomography

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Diffuse Optical Tomography

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Self-Driving Cars

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 2: Light and the Eyes

Vignette: A Rare Case: Vision Without Cones

Light

Light as a Wave

Light as a Stream of Particles

The Optic Array

• Check Your Understanding

The Human Eye

Field of View

Acuity and Eye Movements

Structure and Function of the Eye

Shape and Size

Three Membranes

Cornea

Iris and Pupil

Three Chambers

Lens and Accommodation

• Check Your Understanding

Retina

The Retinal Image

Anatomy of the Retina

Fovea

Pathways of Neural Signals in the Retina: An Overview

• Check Your Understanding

Photoreceptors: Rods and Cones

Transduction of Light

Number and Distribution of Rods and Cones in the Retina

Adapting to Changes in Lighting

Operating Range

Dark Adaptation

Photopigment Regeneration

Rod Sensitivity

• Check Your Understanding

Retinal Ganglion Cells: Circuits in the Retina Send Information to the Brain

Convergence in Retinal Circuits

Receptive Fields

Size and Distribution of Receptive Fields

Retinal Ganglion Cells Have Center–Surround Receptive Fields

Center–Surround Receptive Fields Exhibit Lateral Inhibition

Edge Enhancement: An Example of How It All Works Together

• Check Your Understanding

Disorders of the Eye

Strabismus and Amblyopia

Disorders of Accommodation: Myopia, Hyperopia, Presbyopia, and Astigmatism

Cataracts

High Intraocular Pressure: Glaucoma

Floaters and Phosphenes

Retinal Disease: Macular Degeneration and Retinitis Pigmentosa

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Night-Vision Devices

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 3: The Visual Brain

Vignette: No Thing to See

From Eye to Brain

Lateral Geniculate Nucleus

Pathways from the Retina to the LGN

Functional Specialization of the Layers of the LGN

Information Flow and the LGN

Superior Colliculus

• Check Your Understanding

Primary Visual Cortex (Area V1)

Response Properties of V1 Neurons

Simple Cells

Complex Cells

Responses to Other Visual Features

• Check Your Understanding

Organization of V1

Ocular Dominance Columns

Orientation Columns

Retinotopic Maps and Cortical Magnification

• Check Your Understanding

Functional Areas, Pathways, and Modules

Functional Areas and Pathways

Pathways from the LGN to the Brain’s Visual Areas

The Dorsal and Ventral Pathways

Functional Modules

Area V4: Color and Curvature

Lateral Occipital Cortex and Inferotemporal Cortex: Objects, Faces, and Places

Area MT: Motion

Intraparietal Sulcus: Visually Guided Action

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Brain Implants for the Blind

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 4: Recognizing Visual Objects

Vignette: Face-Blind

A Few Basic Considerations

Object Familiarity

Image Clutter, Object Variety, and Variable Views

Representation and Recognition

• Check Your Understanding

Overview: The Fundamental Steps

• Check Your Understanding

Perceptual Organization

Representing Edges and Regions

Figure–Ground Organization: Assigning Border Ownership

Principles of Figure–Ground Organization

Depth

Surroundedness

Symmetry

Convexity

Meaningfulness

Simplicity

Neural Basis of Border Ownership Assignment

• Check Your Understanding

Perceptual Grouping: Combining Regions

Principles of Perceptual Grouping

Proximity

Similarity

Common Motion

Symmetry and Parallelism

Good Continuation

Neural Basis of Perceptual Grouping

Perceptual Interpolation: Perceiving What Can’t Be Seen Directly

Edge Completion

Surface Completion

Neural Basis of Perceptual Interpolation

Perceptual Organization Reflects Natural Constraints

• Check Your Understanding

Object Recognition

Hierarchical Processes: Shape Representation in V4 and Beyond

Shape Representation in V4

Shape Representation Beyond V4

The Question of "Grandmother Cells"

Modular and Distributed Representations: Faces, Places, and Other Categories of Objects

Top-Down Information

The Gist of a Scene

Unconscious Inference and the Bayesian Approach

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Automatic Face Recognition

Feature-Based Approach

Holistic Approach

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 5: Perceiving Color

Vignette: Colorless

Light and Color

Spectral Power Distribution

Spectral Reflectance

• Check Your Understanding

Dimensions of Color: Hue, Saturation, and Brightness

Color Circle and Color Solid

Color Mixtures

Subtractive Color Mixtures: Mixing Substances

Additive Color Mixtures: Mixing Lights

Complementary Colors

Primary Colors

• Check Your Understanding

Color and the Visual System

Trichromatic Color Representation

Color Matching with Mixtures of Three Primary Colors

Cones and Colors

Principle of Univariance

If You Had Only One Type of Cone (or Only Rods)

If You Had Only Two Types of Cones

Physiological Evidence for Trichromacy

Meaning of Trichromacy

• Check Your Understanding

Opponent Color Representation

Four Basic Colors in Two Pairs of Opposites

Hue Cancellation

Physiological Evidence for Opponency

Color-Opponent Neurons in the Visual Pathway

Color Afterimages and Opponency

Meaning of Opponency

Color Contrast and Color Assimilation

Color Constancy

Lightness Constancy

• Check Your Understanding

Color Vision Deficiencies

Inherited Deficiencies of Color Vision

Monochromacy: Total Color Blindness

Dichromacy: Partial Color Blindness

Cortical Achromatopsia: Color Blindness from Brain Damage

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Color in Art and Technology

Pointillist Painting

Digital Color Video Displays

Digital Color Printing

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 6: Perceiving Depth

Vignette: Learning to See in 3-D

Oculomotor Depth Cues

Accommodation

Convergence

• Check Your Understanding

Monocular Depth Cues

Static Cues: Position, Size, and Lighting in the Retinal Image

Position in the Retinal Image

Partial Occlusion

Relative Height

Size in the Retinal Image

Familiar Size

Relative Size

Texture Gradients

Linear Perspective

Lighting in the Retinal Image

Atmospheric Perspective

Shading

Cast Shadows

Dynamic Cues: Movement in the Retinal Image

Motion Parallax

Optic Flow

Deletion and Accretion

• Check Your Understanding

Binocular Depth Cue: Disparity in the Retinal Images

Binocular Disparity

Corresponding and Noncorresponding Points, and the Horopter

Crossed Disparity, Uncrossed Disparity, and Zero Disparity

Correspondence Problem

Stereograms and Anaglyphs

Random-Dot Stereograms

Neural Basis of Stereopsis

• Check Your Understanding

Integrating Depth Cues

• Check Your Understanding

Depth and Perceptual Constancy

Size Constancy and Size–Distance Invariance

Shape Constancy and Shape–Slant Invariance

• Check Your Understanding

Illusions of Depth, Size, and Shape

Forced Perspective

Ponzo Illusion

Ames Room

Moon Illusion

Tabletop Illusion

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: 3-D Motion Pictures and Television

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 7: Perceiving Motion

Vignette: Still Life

Perceptual Organization from Motion

Perceptual Grouping Based on Real and Apparent Motion

Figure–Ground Organization

Sensitivity to Biological Motion

• Check Your Understanding

Eye Movements and the Perception of Motion and Stability

• Check Your Understanding

Neural Basis of Motion Perception in Area V1 and Area MT

A Simple Neural Circuit That Responds to Motion

The Motion Aftereffect

Area MT

MT Neurons Respond Selectively to Motion

Activity of MT Neurons Causes Directionally Selective Motion Perception

Disruption of Area MT Impairs Motion Perception

The Aperture Problem: Perceiving the Motion of Objects

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Visually Induced Motion Sickness

The How and Why of Motion Sickness

Could Artificial Environments Be Made Less Sickening?

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 8: Perception for Action

Vignette: Inaction

Vision Affects Action

Time to Process Visual Feedback

Optic Flow

Prism Adaptation

• Check Your Understanding

Action Affects Vision

Action Plans

Action Capabilities

Visual Processing in Perihand Space

Action-Specific Perception

• Check Your Understanding

Neural Basis of Perception for Action

The Role of the Parietal Lobe in Eye Movements, Reaching, and Grasping

Bimodal Neurons and Hand-Centered Receptive Fields

Handheld Tool Use

Mirror Neurons

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Perception for Action in Baseball: Catching a Fly Ball and Hitting a Fastball

How to Catch a Fly Ball

How to Hit a Fastball

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 9: Attention and Awareness

Vignette: Out of Mind, Out of Sight

Selective Attention and the Limits of Awareness

Dichotic Listening

Inattentional Blindness

Attentional Blink

Change Blindness

• Check Your Understanding

Attention to Locations, Features, and Objects

Attention to Locations

Attention to Features

Attention to Objects

• Check Your Understanding

Why Attention Is Selective

The Binding Problem

Competition for Neural Representation

• Check Your Understanding

Attentional Control

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Attentional Control

Value-Driven Attentional Control

Sources of Attentional Control in the Brain

• Check Your Understanding

Awareness and the Neural Correlates of Consciousness

Seeking the NCCs in Perceptual Bistability

What Blindsight Reveals About Awareness

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Multitasking

Task Switching

Driving While Talking on a Cell Phone

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 10: Sound and the Ears

Vignette: Dizzy

Sound

Sources of Sound

Physical and Perceptual Dimensions of Sound

Frequency and Pitch

Amplitude and Loudness

Audibility Curve: The Absolute Threshold for Hearing

Equal-Loudness Contours

Waveform and Timbre

• Check Your Understanding

The Ear

Pinna, Auditory Canal, and Tympanic Membrane

Ossicles and Sound Amplification

Eustachian Tube

• Check Your Understanding

Cochlea

Basilar Membrane

Organ of Corti

Stereocilia Bending and Tip Links

Inner Hair Cells and Outer Hair Cells

• Check Your Understanding

Neural Representation of Frequency and Amplitude

Frequency Representation

Place Code for Frequency

Physiological Frequency Tuning Curves

Psychophysical Frequency Tuning Curves

Temporal Code for Frequency

Amplitude Representation

• Check Your Understanding

Disorders of Audition

Hearing Tests and Audiograms

Conductive Hearing Impairments

Sensorineural Hearing Impairments

Age-Related Hearing Impairment

Noise-Induced Hearing Impairments

Tinnitus

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Cochlear Implants

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 11: The Auditory Brain and Perceiving Auditory Scenes

Vignette: Hearing Without Recognition

The Auditory Brain

Ascending Pathways: From the Ear to the Brain

Descending Pathways: From the Brain to the Ear

Auditory Cortex

"What" and "Where" Pathways and Other Specialized Regions of the Auditory Brain

• Check Your Understanding

Localizing Sounds

Perceiving Azimuth

Interaural Level Differences

Interaural Time Differences

Head Motion and the "Cone of Confusion"

Perceiving Elevation

• Check Your Understanding

Perceiving Distance

Echolocation by Bats and Humans

Echoes and the Precedence Effect

Looking While Listening: Vision and Sound Localization

Neural Basis of Sound Localization

• Check Your Understanding

Auditory Scene Analysis

Simultaneous Grouping

Grouping by Harmonic Coherence

Grouping by Synchrony or Asynchrony

Sequential Grouping

Grouping by Frequency Similarity

Grouping by Temporal Proximity

Perceptual Completion of Occluded Sounds

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Seeing by Hearing

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 12: Perceiving Speech and Music

Vignette: "Singing Sounds Like Shouting to Me"

Speech

The Sounds of Speech: Phonemes

Producing the Sounds of Speech

Producing Vowels

Producing Consonants

• Check Your Understanding

Perceiving the Sounds of Speech

Coarticulation and Perceptual Constancy

Categorical Perception of Phonemes

Vision and Speech Perception: The McGurk Effect

• Check Your Understanding

Knowledge and Speech Perception

Syntax and Semantics

Word Segmentation

Perceptual Completion: Phonemic Restoration

Brain Pathways for Speech Perception and Production

• Check Your Understanding

Music

Dimensions of Music: Pitch, Loudness, Timing, and Timbre

Pitch

Loudness and Timing

Timbre

Melody

Scales and Keys; Consonance and Dissonance

Knowledge and Music Perception

Neural Basis of Music Perception

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Speech Recognition by Machines

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 13: The Body Senses

Vignette: Watch Yourself!

Tactile Perception: Perceiving Mechanical Stimulation of the Skin

Slow-Adapting Type I (SAI) Mechanoreceptors: Perceiving Pattern, Texture, and Shape

• Check Your Understanding

Fast-Adapting Type I (FAI) Mechanoreceptors: Perceiving Slip and Maintaining Grip Control

Slow-Adapting Type II (SAII) Mechanoreceptors: Perceiving Skin Stretch and Hand Conformation

Fast-Adapting Type II (FAII) Mechanoreceptors: Perceiving Fine Textures Through Transmitted Vibration

Perceiving Pleasant Touch

Mechanoreceptor Transduction

• Check Your Understanding

Proprioception: Perceiving Position and Movement of the Limbs

Nociception: Perceiving Pain

Thermoreception: Perceiving Temperature

• Check Your Understanding

From Body to Brain

Somatotopic Cortical Maps

Responses and Representations in the Somatosensory Cortex and Beyond

Neural Responses in Areas S1 and S2

Dorsal and Ventral Pathways

Cortical Representation of Temperature

Pathways for the Discriminative and Affective Dimensions of Pain Perception

Top-Down Mechanisms of Pain Reduction

Cortical Plasticity and Phantom Limbs

• Check Your Understanding

Haptic Perception: Recognizing Objects by Touch

The Vestibular System: Perceiving Balance and Acceleration

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: Haptic Feedback in Robot-Assisted Surgery

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 14: Olfaction: Perceiving Odors

Vignette: When the Nose Knows Nothing

What Is an Odor?

Odorants

Detection and Identification of Odors

Detection Thresholds and Difference Thresholds

Identifying and Discriminating Odors

The Role of Odors in Sensing Flavor

Olfactory Impairments: Age and Other Factors

Adaptation to Odors

• Check Your Understanding

Anatomical and Neural Basis of Odor Perception

The Olfactory System: From Nose to Brain

Olfactory Transduction and the Large Variety of Olfactory Receptors

Adaptation by Olfactory Receptor Neurons

Neural Code for Odor

Representing Odors in the Brain

Separate Cortical Representation of Odor Identity and Pleasantness

Cortical Adaptation to Odors

• Check Your Understanding

Odors, Emotion, and Memory

Effects of Odors on Social and Reproductive Behavior

Pheromones, Sweat, and Tears

Human Leukocyte Antigen Detection

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: The eNose

How eNoses Work

eNoses on Wheels

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Chapter 15: Gustation: Perceiving Tastes and Flavors

Vignette: Poor Taste

What Is Taste? What Is Flavor?

Tastants and the Basic Tastes

The Perception of Flavor

• Check Your Understanding

Anatomical and Neural Basis of Taste and Flavor Perception

Taste Buds and Taste Receptor Cells

From Taste Buds to the Brain

Representing Taste and Flavor in the Brain

Adaptation and Cross-Adaptation

Cognitive Influences in the OFC, and the Flavor of Expensive Wine

• Check Your Understanding

Regulating Food Intake

Sensory-Specific Satiety

Regulating Food Intake in the Absence of Taste

Individual Differences in Taste and Flavor Perception

• Check Your Understanding

APPLICATIONS: How Sweet It Is? The Taste and Use of Artificial Sweeteners

Brain Responses to Artificial Sweeteners

Behavioral Responses to Artificial Sweeteners

Artificial Sweeteners and Weight Loss

• Check Your Understanding

Summary

Key Terms

Expand Your Understanding

Read More About It

　

Appendix: Noise and Signal Detection Theory

Noise in Neural Activity and the Psychometric Function

• Check Your Understanding

Signal Detection Theory

A Signal Detection Experiment

Sensitivity and Bias

• Check Your Understanding