Sensation and Perception

The primary tastes are salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and umami.

The pinna collects sound waves and passes them along the auditory canal to the eardrum. Vibrations of the eardrum move along to the ossicles and from there move through the oval window to the cochlea. The fluid in the cochlea then moves in waves, and the hair cells pick up this wave motion.

Accommodation is the process by which the lens of the eye adjusts in shape to focus light from objects that are near or far away.

According to opponent process theory, the visual system responds to three pairs of “opposed” colors. When the receptors that respond to one color, such as red, become overstimulated, the visual system perceives the opposing color, in this case green, as an afterimage.

The phi phenomenon, or stroboscopic movement, makes neon signs appear to move. The brain perceives a series of still images presented in rapid succession as movement.