PY3110:03
*NOTE* Human Sensation and Perception
Cairns
Prerequisites: (PY2091 or PY2101) (PY2092 or PY2102) (PY2093 or PY2106)
Inadmissable Subject Combination: PY3024
26 lectures, 24 hours workshops. Second semester.
Staff: Assoc. Professor R van der Zwan (Cairns campus).
This subject reviews the anatomy and physiology of the visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory and somaesthetic sensory systems from periphery to cortex and explores, from an information-processing perspective, how organisms may make sense of the torrent of neural activity originating at the receptors through various processes of selection, classification, organisation, assimilation and interpretation. Modality-specific thresholds, adaptations, constancies, illusions and after-effects are considered. Visual and auditory perception are dealt with in particular detail. Students are introduced to the essentials of psychophysics.
Learning Objectives:
- a keen appreciation of the way in which humans make sense of the sea of energies in which they are immersed;
- a thorough understanding of the experimental techniques used to study perception and experience in applying them;
- a detailed knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the senses and the experiences to which they give rise.
Assessment by an essay (40%); final examination (60%).