Sensation and Perception

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EXPLAIN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION SENSATION: refers to the process of obtaining sensory information through the stimulation of body parts or to the conscious feelings. Sensations can be classified as exteroceptive, interoceptive and proprioceptive. Exteroceptive sensation provides information about taste, smell, temperature, pain, pressure and touch. Interoceptive sensations provide information about the internal environment and include such sensations such as pain, hunger, thirst, nausea and fatigue. Proprioception sensations provide information about body positions and movement. PERCEPTION: refers to how the brain organizes and interprets sensory information. It can also be defined as an active process in which the brain treats external stimuli as raw material to be shaped, aided by our experience. Gestalt psychologists made a major contribution to the theory of perception by studying the ways people organize and select from the multitude of stimuli that are presented to them. The brain receives information from the environment by way of specialized sensors called receptors. These receptors respond to physical stimuli such as light, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Nature has conveniently distributed these receptors in places on the body where they will be most useful, for example, in the retina, tongue, ears, nose, and skin--what we call our sensory apparatus. Environmental inputs are received by the senses and distributed to different parts of the brain for analysis. By a process that is not understood, the brain assembles the different elements into the perceptual experiences that make up our everyday lives. THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION Sensation is the pickup of information by our sensory receptors, for example eyes, ears, skin, nostrils, and tongue. In vision, sensation occurs as rays of light are collected by the two eyes and

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