Foundations of Sensation and Perception offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the science of sensation and perception. It covers all the human senses and answers many questions, such as why movies are so convincing, how ventriloquism works, why things sound different as you get older and why you may feel ill in an aircraft or sea vessel.
Full of illustrations and graphs that bring concepts to life, the textbook covers vision, hearing, balance, touch, pain, smell and taste. It discusses each sensory system through its fundamental neuroscience, major perceptual qualities and underlying coding principles. Each chapter includes reflective questions, key terms and information boxes and chapter summaries. Each chapter ends with a tutorial section which introduces more advanced areas of study in an accessible way (including measurement of light and Fourier analysis) as well as topics outside of the mainstream of sensation (including music perception, colour deficiencies and phantom limbs).
The fourth edition of this bestselling textbook includes an extensive update of the text to reflect the latest research, a greater focus on balance and the body senses and a major reorganisation of the chapters for ease of use. It will be an invaluable resource for a wide range of undergraduate students in psychology, neuroscience and related disciplines.
1. Essentials 2. Light and the Eye 3. Visual Neuroscience 4. Early Spatial Vision 5. Seeing Depth 6. Seeing Motion 7. Seeing Colour 8. Recognition 9. Sound and Auditory Neuroscience 10. Hearing 11. Balance 12. Somatosensation and Body Sense 13. The Chemical Senses 14. Multisensory Integration
Biography
George Mather is Honorary Professor at the University of Sussex, UK, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Lincoln, UK. He has published over 80 research papers and 5 books. His main research interests are in motion perception, visual after-effects and the perception of visual art.
"This 4th edition shows again how well George Mather is on top of new developments, linking it with a critical eye to the important work of the past. This version will secure that Foundations of Sensation and Perception keeps the status as one of the best introductions to the field of perception, for starting as well as advanced students of Perception. It also has lots to tell to a wider audience, in particular to those that work in applied domains where the senses play an important, if not decisive, role." -- Frans Verstraten, the University of Sydney, Australia
"Mather’s Foundations of Sensation and Perception has always delivered high quality support for any budding student of vision, hearing, balance, touch, taste and smell. This new edition brings the subject matter bang up to date, blending traditional approaches with tutorials on each chapter, top and tailed with abstracts and summaries. Delivered with commanding ease, essential details and comparisons of investigative tools, theories and experiments inform and enrich the student’s journey of discovery into the bewildering complexities of what it is to be a sensory being. My bookshelf will not be without this new edition." -- Timothy S. Meese, College of Health and Life Sciences, Aston University, UK
"This new edition is an excellent choice for introductory as well as advanced courses and has the breadth and depth to serve as a basic reference for all. The additions covering neural network approaches, body senses and vision make this a timely, comprehensive, and well-structured text. The book takes us through the mechanisms of sensation and perception and shows how they offer immediate and tangible access to the workings of the brain." -- Patrick Cavanagh, Emeritus Professor, Harvard University, USA, and Université Paris Cité, France. Senior Research Fellow, York University, Canada
