Sensation and Perception - Coursework Example

REFLECTIVE PAPER College The sensation and perception topic gives individuals a chance to study the main senses in human beings hence help in studying how the body perceives is self. The body has five main senses that are perceived by their respective body parts. Sensation is the stimuli or the sense that gives the individual a chance to come into contact with the physical environment while perception is the interpretation is the recognition and interpretation of the senses by the help of the brain through a number of known processes. The body works as a team in that all the body systems work with other parts of the body to cause perception. However sensation occurs at a particular organ system. The visual system depicts the ability of people and other organisms to see hence the eye and the brain work hand in hand. The work of the eye is to receive light while the brain is to interpret what the eye has seen. This process occurs very fast because for one to immediately know what one has seen it takes the same second. This means the visuals system works very fast, faster than the speed of light hence a high leveled organization of body structures. The visual system is mainly the eye and the retina as light is received and reaches the retina through the pupil. The pupil is the small hole in the iris of the eye that only allows the light is controlled by the iris into the back part of the eye which is the retina (Coren, 1979). The retina is the part of the visual system that should not fail the other parts in that when the allowed light reaches the retina, it is now transmitted to the brain through an array of receptors which then are interpreted and the individual is able to detect what the image is. As earlier stated this is a fast process and efforts to determine how long this takes are fruitless. The speed may differ nonetheless hence causing delayed or poor eyesight of people. The elderly take time before they see something this is due to the damage of a certain part of the eye which might probably be the retina and further leading to poor eyesight. The males’ ability to detect color of objects is poor compared to that of the female. This might be as a result of the genes in males or the structures that make up the con photoreceptors in the retina of the eye (Goldstein, 1989). The auditory systems is part of the body system that senses sound and helps people hear and perceive what they have heard. The system like any other body system works in a way that one has to hear first and the sound is encoded thereafter it is with the work of the brain that the person knows the description of that sound. Sounds are different in that there is the musical sound which is orderly and has differences that people without knowledge of the music may hear and perceive the music is from a certain song but may not understand everything that comes with music with regards to pitch and vocal ranges. Sound from musical perception occurs in a manner that is organized and comes from a group of people with connected beats. People with the same vocal range will produce a unison sound that will be hard to know if it is from a mass of people. The musical nature of sound portrays the wide variation of different sounds by different people merging together to be produced at the same time from the same direction. Likewise just like the visual system the process between hearing and interpreting what is heard takes a very short time and this is majority by the help of the brain. The pinna of all organisms control the amount of sound that the ear receives and the eardrum receives the sound. Sound travels through a series of structure in the body just like the in the eye and hence the signals are transmitted to the brain hence giving the person an ability to know the direction, the source and the type of sound all at the same time. The ear is structured in a method that helps the travel of sound signals to the brain to be as fast as possible. Speech and the complex nature of perception of the auditory system are as a result of encoding of sounds which are not necessarily organized but everyone is able to determine the type and source of the sound. The auditory system works well when the sounds are organized in order for the brain to interpret what is received by the ear. Disorganized sounds are known as noise and this is not easily interpreted by the brain but regarded as noise (Coren, 1979). The touch of people is the sensation felt when one comes into contact with an object from the physical environment but the touch can also be felt from inside the body. The sensation is sensed through the skin and the receptors on the skin. The skin receptors receive the touch signal and transmit the impulses to the brain. The skin receptors pass through the spinal code hence reaching the brain. In cases of temperature, the brain perceives the amount of temperature and changes the behavior of the sensory structures on the skin and inside the skin. The ability of the body to receive and detect how to behave towards the temperature is not solely through the brain but the skin receptors. Pain is the kind of touch that causes discomfort in a person and can be through an itch, a burn or a bite. All this attribute to pain and the pain signals help in perception of the pain by the brain and its location. The pain is felt on different parts of the skin or a big portion of the skin. The theory that supports mild to chronic pain is explain that not all pain carrying fibers are able to pass through the spinal code hence the brain is not able to determine the cause of the pain but due to the sensory nature of the skin, the location of pain is determined. The chemical senses refer to the ability of one to taste or smell something from the outside environment. These chemical sources work together with the brain as it interprets what is smelt and the source or type of smell. The smell can be disturbing which hence bad odor and it can also be a good scent hence attractive to the olfactory system. The tongue is the organ of the body that helps the person determine flavors of different items ingested. The moment food or a drink is put in the mouth; one is able to recognize the taste through the help of the taste buds. Taste includes, sweet, sour, bitter and salty. An infant is a human being that is not able to coordinate the body systems efficiently hence causing nobility to work together. A baby’s brain is quite slow in performance and the body systems work solely as they cannot perform the perception of senses all at the same time. They work differently and this is due to the nature of the baby. Caning the environment of the child very often may hinder the ability of a child to develop fast hence the conditions in which the infant lives must allow the brain to start perceiving all the senses not solely but in unison in that the body can multitask. In conclusion, the main aspect of the sensation and perception topic is to establish how the brain and the other organ systems work together. References Coren, S., Porac, C., & Ward, L. M. (1979). Sensation and perception. New York: Academic Press. Goldstein, E. B. (1989). Sensation and perception. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Pub. Co. Read More