stimuli

Examples of stimuli in the following topics:

• Humoral, Hormonal, and Neural Stimuli

  • The release of hormones can be triggered by changes in the blood ("humor"), by the actions of other hormones, or by neurological stimuli.
  • Hormonal stimuli refers to the release of a hormone in response to another hormone.
  • In some cases, the nervous system directly stimulates endocrine glands to release hormones, which is referred to as neural stimuli.

• Selection

  • Most of us are presented with millions of sensory stimuli a day.
  • Long-term motivations also influence what stimuli we attend to.
  • Emotional drives can also influence the selective attention humans pay to stimuli.
  • This shows that infants selectively attend to specific stimuli in their environment.
  • Humans who could attend closely to these stimuli were more likely to survive than their counterparts, since some intense stimuli (like pain, powerful smells, or loud noises) can indicate danger.

• Unconscious Perception

  • We encounter more stimuli than we can attend to; unconscious perception helps the brain process all stimuli, not just those we take in consciously.
  • Individuals take in more stimuli from their environment than they can consciously attend to at any given moment.
  • The brain is constantly processing all the stimuli it is exposed to, not just those that it consciously attends to.
  • Priming occurs when an unconscious response to an initial stimulus affects responses to future stimuli.
  • A number of studies have examined how unconscious stimuli influence human perception.

• Performed individually

  • Subjective stimuli: Observations about an individual's surrounding environment and nature made by the individual, as well as more affective and temporal judgments about things not really seen but that are definitely felt.

• Introducing the Perception Process

  • Perception is the set of unconscious processes we undergo to make sense of the stimuli and sensations we encounter.
  • Our brains engage in a three-step process when presented with stimuli: selection, organization, and interpretation.
  • The perceptual process is a sequence of steps that begins with stimuli in the environment and ends with our interpretation of those stimuli.
  • By putting different stimuli into categories, we can better understand and react to the world around us.
  • Rubin's Vase is a popular optical illusion used to illustrate differences in perception of stimuli.

• Psychology of Purchasing

  • It posited that behavioral tendencies are determined by immediate associations between various environmental stimuli and the degree of pleasure or pain that follows.
  • Behavioral patterns, then, were understood to consist of organisms' conditioned responses to the stimuli in their environment.
  • It posited that behavioral tendencies are determined by immediate associations between various environmental stimuli and the degree of pleasure or pain that follows.
  • Behavioral patterns, then, were understood to consist of organisms' conditioned responses to the stimuli in their environment.
  • The stimuli were held to exert influence in proportion to their prior repetition or to the previous intensity of their associated pain or pleasure.

• Interpretation

  • In the interpretation stage of perception, we attach meaning to stimuli.
  • Each stimulus or group of stimuli can be interpreted in many different ways.
  • Prior experience plays a major role in the way a person interprets stimuli.
  • Different individuals react differently to the same stimuli, depending on their prior experience of that stimuli.
  • Cultural scripts dictate how positive and negative stimuli should be interpreted.

• Pain Sensation

  • Pain is an unpleasant sensation caused by the activation of nociceptors by thermal, mechanical, chemical, or other stimuli.
  • A nociceptor is a sensory receptor that responds to potentially damaging stimuli by sending nerve signals to the spinal cord and brain.
  • So it is possible that some of the transducers for thermal stimuli are the same for mechanical stimuli.
  • The peripheral terminal of the mature nociceptor is where the noxious stimuli are detected and transduced into electrical energy.
  • C fibers respond to thermal, mechanical, and chemical stimuli and terminate at the Rexed lamina II (labeled II in the diagram).

• Reception

  • In more advanced animals, the senses are constantly at work, making the animal aware of stimuli, such as light or sound or the presence of a chemical substance in the external environment, while monitoring information about the organism's internal environment.
  • Additionally, we possess general senses, also called somatosensation, which respond to stimuli like temperature, pain, pressure, and vibration.
  • Free nerve endings can be stimulated by several different stimuli, thus showing little receptor specificity.
  • The first step in sensation is reception: the activation of sensory receptors by stimuli such as mechanical stimuli (being bent or squished, for example), chemicals, or temperature.
  • The receptor can then respond to the stimuli.

• Behavior Modification

  • Modifying behavior through reinforcement and environmental stimuli can increase positive actions and decrease negative actions in the workplace.
  • External forces that impact behavior are referred to as stimuli, and understanding what type of stimuli may modify behavior is useful in leading organizations.
  • Reinforcement, both positive and negative, can be created via incentives or the removal and avoidance of negative stimuli. 
  • Differentiate between the various stimuli managers use to create or reinforce certain types of behavior