Sensation and perception article
The following is an exercise in sensation and perception.
One day you come home from a hard day at work to the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. The aroma of the cookies is overwhelming as you walk towards the door of your house and it makes your mouth water. You really want those cookies! Once you get inside the house you head straight towards the kitchen, ignoring the fact that your dog is barking at you to let her out. You also walk straight past your kids who are trying to give you "welcome home" hugs and a babysitter who is trying to get you to pay her so that she can leave. Finally, you arrive at the kitchen to get the cookies out of the oven and... there are none there. They are all gone! It turns out that the cookies had been baked earlier in the day and the kids and babysitter had eaten them all. Now you are really craving cookies!
You have used the olfactory sense to smell the cookies. The olfactory sense works through the nose and it is the sense of smell. First, the odor of the cookies interact with the receptor proteins associated with the specialized hairs in the nose. The stimulated nerve cells that are associated with these hairs convey info about the stimulus to the brains olfactory bulbs. The olfactory bulbs are located on the underside of the brain just below the frontal lobes. The complete process, beginning to end goes through: odor being smelled, mucus layer, olfactory hair, dendrite, olfactory receptor cell, axon, connective tissue, olfactory nerves, and finally the olfactory bulbs of the brain.
You perceived the cookies to be baking in the oven because you associated the smell with the presence of cookies. Perception can be defined as a process that makes sensory patterns meaningful. Perception draws heavily on memory, motivation, emotion, and other psychological processes. You knew from previous experience that the odor you were smelling was associated with cookies baking and that they would be in the oven. You ignored all of your surroundings because you were extremely focused on the one stimulus, the cookies. You were motivated to get to the cookies because you were expecting them to be there and you had had a hard day at work. Perception can alter greatly from person to person because it is how each person sees and comprehends the world around them. For instance a different person might have been disgusted by the smell of baking cookies.
One day you come home from a hard day at work to the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. The aroma of the cookies is overwhelming as you walk towards the door of your house and it makes your mouth water. You really want those cookies! Once you get inside the house you head straight towards the kitchen, ignoring the fact that your dog is barking at you to let her out. You also walk straight past your kids who are trying to give you "welcome home" hugs and a babysitter who is trying to get you to pay her so that she can leave. Finally, you arrive at the kitchen to get the cookies out of the oven and... there are none there. They are all gone! It turns out that the cookies had been baked earlier in the day and the kids and babysitter had eaten them all. Now you are really craving cookies!
You have used the olfactory sense to smell the cookies. The olfactory sense works through the nose and it is the sense of smell. First, the odor of the cookies interact with the receptor proteins associated with the specialized hairs in the nose. The stimulated nerve cells that are associated with these hairs convey info about the stimulus to the brains olfactory bulbs. The olfactory bulbs are located on the underside of the brain just below the frontal lobes. The complete process, beginning to end goes through: odor being smelled, mucus layer, olfactory hair, dendrite, olfactory receptor cell, axon, connective tissue, olfactory nerves, and finally the olfactory bulbs of the brain.
You perceived the cookies to be baking in the oven because you associated the smell with the presence of cookies. Perception can be defined as a process that makes sensory patterns meaningful. Perception draws heavily on memory, motivation, emotion, and other psychological processes. You knew from previous experience that the odor you were smelling was associated with cookies baking and that they would be in the oven. You ignored all of your surroundings because you were extremely focused on the one stimulus, the cookies. You were motivated to get to the cookies because you were expecting them to be there and you had had a hard day at work. Perception can alter greatly from person to person because it is how each person sees and comprehends the world around them. For instance a different person might have been disgusted by the smell of baking cookies.