We take in information through our senses in a process known as transduction. Each sense transduces stimuli through a different process, but the end result is the same – stimuli in our world is transformed into the language of our nervous systems – 1s and 0s (or action potential rate).
Then our brain has to make sense of it all based on the information it is receiving from our sensory end organs (i.e., bottom-up information from our eyes, nose, ears, skin, tongue) and the information it has stored in the brain (i.e., top-down information from our memories, expectations, etc). How we make sense of the world is our perception, and sometimes we make mistakes or are fooled by our senses! That’s where the fun comes into play! The visual illusion below is the rotating snake illusion. Do you see movement in the image? If you do, your brain made it up because there is no movement in the image at all!

INSTRUCTIONS
-1. Pick ONE of the following questions about vision to answer:

1A- How is light transduced by the eye? Be sure to mention the retina and the different functions of the rods and cones. What happens to transduction in your blind spot?
1B- How do we see color vision? Explain both the trichromatic and opponent process theories of color perception. Be sure to mention what happens (neurally) if someone is “color blind”.

-2. Pick ONE of the following questions about hearing to answer:

2A- How is sound transduced by the ear? Be sure to mention what happens in the outer, middle, and inner ears. How do cochlear implants mimic auditory processing?
2B- Describe the physical and perception qualities of loudness, pitch, and timbre. Explain the place theory, frequency theory, and volley theory of pitch perception. How does pitch perception change over the lifespan?

-3. Pick ONE of the following questions to answer:

3A-Using the sense of smell or taste: How is the sense transduced? Describe what an absolute threshold and a difference threshold might be. What happens when you become adapted to a smell/taste stimulus? Explain how Weber’s Law might apply in your example of the difference threshold.
3B- Using the sense of touch: Explain the gate-control theory of pain perception. Be sure to mention what information the fast and slow nerve fibers transmit. Name a bottom-up and top-down influence to pain perception and explain how it would affect pain perception in the gate-control theory.

(PLEASE ANSWER ALL PARTS OF THE QUESTION CHOSEN)

Answers should be a minimum of 11 sentences in length, should be well thought out, should show critical thinking about the topic, and should be based on evidence from the readings (with included citations and References from the powerpoint attached!!!!!!).

In your initial post, you should also identify a concept from this week’s lessons that was either interesting or confusing. You should explain the concept in your own words, and you should explain why it was interesting or confusing. (This interesting concept should be about The Trichromatic Theory!!!!) Answers for the interesting concept should be a minimum of 6 sentences in length.