This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1970.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1970.
The publication in 1957 of S.S. Stevens' famous paper, On the psychophysical law, ignited a controversy which has continued ever since relating to people's subjective judgements of physical reality. Why is it that the perception of sensation can diverge so sharply from the magnitude of the stimulus? How should sensation be measured? Donald Laming brings together a diversity of ideas and a wealth of experimental evidence, and provides a challenging new perspective on the question which has fragmented the research community for nearly 40 years.
The publication in 1957 of S.S. Stevens' famous paper, On the psychophysical law, ignited a controversy which has continued ever since relating to people's subjective judgements of physical reality. Why is it that the perception of sensation can diverge so sharply from the magnitude of thestimulus? How should sensation be measured? Donald Laming brings together a diversity of ideas and a wealth of experimental evidence, and provides a challenging new perspective on the question which has fragmented the research community for nearly 40 years.
The ?eld of sensory science has grown exponentially since the publication of the p- vious version of this work. Fifteen years ago the journal Food Quality and Preference was fairly new. Now it holds an eminent position as a venue for research on sensory test methods (among many other topics). Hundreds of articles relevant to sensory testing have appeared in that and in other journals such as the Journal of Sensory Studies. Knowledge of the intricate cellular processes in chemoreception, as well as their genetic basis, has undergone nothing less than a revolution, culminating in the award of the Nobel Prize to Buck and Axel in 2004 for their discovery of the olfactory receptor gene super family. Advances in statistical methodology have accelerated as well. Sensometrics meetings are now vigorous and well-attended annual events. Ideas like Thurstonian modeling were not widely embraced 15 years ago, but now seem to be part of the everyday thought process of many sensory scientists. And yet, some things stay the same. Sensory testing will always involve human participants. Humans are tough measuring instruments to work with. They come with varying degrees of acumen, training, experiences, differing genetic equipment, sensory capabilities, and of course, different preferences. Human foibles and their associated error variance will continue to place a limitation on sensory tests and actionable results. Reducing, controlling, partitioning, and explaining error variance are all at the heart of good test methods and practices.
Agency has two meanings in psychology and neuroscience. It can refer to one's capacity to affect the world and act in line with one's goals and desires--this is the objective aspect of agency. But agency can also refer to the subjective experience of controlling one's actions, or how it feels to achieve one's goals or affect the world. This subjective aspect is known as the sense of agency, and it is an important part of what makes us human. Interest in the sense of agency has exploded since the early 2000s, largely because scientists have learned that it can be studied objectively through analyses of human judgment, behavior, and the brain. This book brings together some of the world's leading researchers to give structure to this nascent but rapidly growing field. The contributors address questions such as: What role does agency play in the sense of self? Is agency based on predicting outcomes of actions? And what are the links between agency and motivation? Recent work on the sense of agency has been markedly interdisciplinary. The chapters collected here combine ideas and methods from fields as diverse as engineering, psychology, neurology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind, making the book a valuable resource for any student or researcher interested in action, volition, and exploring how mind and brain are organized.
This book is designed to help students organize their thinking about psychology at a conceptual level. The focus on behaviour and empiricism has produced a text that is better organized, has fewer chapters, and is somewhat shorter than many of the leading books. The beginning of each section includes learning objectives; throughout the body of each section are key terms in bold followed by their definitions in italics; key takeaways, and exercises and critical thinking activities end each section.
Sensation of Movement explores the role of sensation in motor control, bodily self-recognition and sense of agency. The sensation of movement is dependent on a range of information received by the brain, from signalling in the peripheral sensory organs to the establishment of higher order goals. Through the integration of neuroscientific knowledge with psychological and philosophical perspectives, this book questions whether one type of information is more relevant for the ability to sense and control movement. Addressing conscious sensations of movement, experimental designs and measures, and the possible functions of proprioceptive and kinaesthetic information in motor control and bodily cognition, the book advocates the integration of neuroscientific knowledge and philosophical perspectives. With an awareness of the diverse ideas and theories from these distinct fields, the book brings together leading researchers to bridge these divides and lay the groundwork for future research. Of interest to both students and researchers of consciousness, Sensation of Movement will be essential reading for those researching motor control, multimodal perception, bodily self-recognition, and sense of agency. It aims to encourage the integration of multiple perspectives in order to arrive at new insights into how sensation of movement can be studied scientifically.
Like the revolutionary bestsellers Predictably Irrational and Emotional Intelligence, Sensation is an exciting, completely new view of human behavior—a new psychology of physical intelligence (or embodied cognition)—that explains how the body unconsciously affects our everyday decisions and choices, written by one of the world’s leading psychologists. From colors and temperatures to heavy objects and tall people, a whole symphony of external stimuli exerts a constant influence on the way your mind works. Yet these effects have been hidden from you—until now. Drawing on her own work as well as from research across the globe, Dr. Thalma Lobel reveals how shockingly susceptible we are to sensory input from the world around us. An aggressive negotiator can be completely disarmed by holding a warm cup of tea or sitting in a soft chair. Clean smells promote moral behavior, but people are more likely to cheat on a test right after having taken a shower. Red-colored type causes us to fail exams, but red dresses make women sexier and teams wearing red jerseys win more games. We take questionnaires attached to heavy clipboards more seriously and believe people who like sweets to be nicer. Ultimately, the book’s message is startling: Though we claim ownership of our decisions, judgments, and values, they derive as much from our outside environment as from inside our minds. Now, Sensation empowers you to evaluate those outside forces in order to make better decisions in every facet of your personal and professional lives.
