REVIEW

90% accurate and 90% on topic
In this lecture, I explain the distinction between sensation and perception. Sensation is the raw input from my five senses-data that just "is," without interpretation. In contrast, perception is what my brain does with that data; it’s my brain organizing sensation into a coherent, subjective experience. these are catergorized into proximal (like touch and taste) and distal (like sight and hearing) senses, which help me understand how close or distant stimuli need to be for interaction.
I explore blindsight-a fascinating phenomenon where people can sense obstacles without consciously seeing them. It’s as if some unconscious processing is at work, showing me that sensory pathways are more complex than I initially thought.
Then, I dive into change detection and Weber’s Law. Rather than sensing every single stimulus, my brain is a "percentage change detector," picking up on shifts in the environment rather than absolute values. I note phic restoration, an expectancy effect where my brain "fills in" missing sounds based on what I think I should hear, shaping my perception based on expectations. This helps me understand top-down processing (perception influences sensation) and bottom-up processing (sensation leads to perception).
I get into Freud's model next. I think of the id as my impulse-driven side, craving pleasure, and the superego as my moral compass. My ego mediates between these two, balancing my impulses with moral considerations. Freud’s levels of consciousness also make sense now: conscious, preconscious, and unconscious levels explain how some thoughts are accessible, while others stay buried.
Then I go over classical conditioning with Pavlov’s dogs. Here, the unconditioned stimulus (food) naturally produces an unconditioned response (salivation). Through conditioning, a neutral stimulus (bell) becomes a conditioned stimulus, and the salivation response becomes conditioned. Concepts like GLOBES generalization, Latent inhibition, overgeneralization, blocking, extinction, and spontaneous recovery refine my understanding of how associations form and fade.
Switching to operant conditioning, I think about Skinner and his Skinner box. He built on Thorndike’s law of effect-if an action feels good, I’ll likely repeat it; if it feels bad, I’ll avoid it. I look at different reinforcement schedules like fixed ratio, variable ratio, and fixed interval, noting how each schedule influences my behavior. A variable ratio (like a slot machine) keeps me engaged with unpredictable rewards, which explains why this reinforcement schedule is so powerful.
Finally, I look at memory. I categorize it into sensory, working, and long-term memory. In explicit memory, I find episodic memory (personal experiences, like watching a favorite show) and semantic memory (factual knowledge, like trivia). Implicit memory, on the other hand, includes procedural memory (like riding a bike) and priming, which helps me retrieve information with context cues. I remember that consolidation strengthens memories, moving them from working to long-term storage.

[@BeverlyOkyere]

Thank you!