Philip Zimbardo Psychological Analysis

Watching Sensation and Perception on Discovery Psychology with Philip Zimbardo greatly enforced material that we have learned in class. As the film begins some questions are posed such as how is our brain tricked by visual illusions and what makes a star quarterback miss an easy pass? These questions and many more where discussed and answered throughout the film. The first explanation given as to why our brain might be tricked by the world around us is because of the limitations to our sensation and perception. Sometimes the brain must go with an unrealistic explanation even though it is not logical. This point was further proven when it appeared to our brain that the man in the room was growing larger when in reality the room was skewed to cause this illusion to occur. Although our brains can be tricked
from time to time our perception is usually pretty accurate. Our perception must be accurate in fact because it is the way we discover what is going on in the outside world. Not only humans but many species have developed special sensory abilities to gather information that is essential for survival. For example, eagles have great vision to allow them to hunt prey, dogs have a sense of smell that is one hundred times stronger than that of a humans and bats use sonar to track small insects. Next in the film it is discussed that our sensory abilities are usually measured by an absolute threshold which is the weakest level of a stimulus that can be accurately detected at least half the time. For humans our absolute thresholds are as follows: (1) a flame from a candle seen at 30 miles on a clear dark night, (2) the tick of a watch at twenty feet in a quiet room, (3) one teaspoon of sugar in two gallons of water, (4) one drop of perfume in the space of a three room apartment and (5) the wing of a bee falling on the cheek from a distance of one centimeter. The way we are able to sense the world around us is by using the millions of specialized sensory receptors in our bodies. Each sensory receptor is designed to detect a certain type of physical energy. No matter what type physical of energy is sensed, the cortex is responsible for taking in all the sensory information and acting on it properly. The visual information is processed in the occipital lube, hearing and smell information is processed in the temporal lobe, speech information is processed in the frontal lobe, and body senses are processed in the parietal lobe.
Every moment the brain must make an endless about of perceptual decisions. Some perceptual decisions the brain must make are computing size and distance relationships, determining where boundaries and edges exist, identifying figures within backgrounds and moving use toward objects we want as well as away from objects we need to avoid. The brain automatically computes many kinds of sensory information and guides our bodies without the need for conscious thought. To truly work effectively our perception must work quickly to extract the minimal amount of information necessary to form an impression of the entire pattern. There is no doubt that we can never take our perception for granted no matter how often we use in our everyday lives. Watching Sensation and Perception on Discovery Psychology really was a good reminder of the material we covered in class and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is taking an introductory psychology
class.