Sensation & Perception V3
Sensation and Perception V3 is an introductory college textbook that explores how we detect and interpret sensory information from the world around us. Covering all five major senses—vision, audition, touch, taste, and smell—the book provides a comprehensive overview of the biological and psychological processes that underlie perception. While all sensory modalities are discussed, the primary emphasis is on vision, tracing the flow of visual information from the moment light strikes the retina through the complex mechanisms that allow us to perceive objects, color, motion, and depth.
Cover illustration created with ChatGPT (OpenAI) in July 2026 using the prompt: "Create a textbook cover illustration for a college-level Sensation and Perception textbook where a hand is holding a magnifying glass in front of a disembodied eye, ear, nose, and mouth." The original image did not include the book title or author name, and all of the people depicted were white, despite the prompt not specifying race or ethnicity. I subsequently requested greater human diversity in the individuals represented. I note this here to illustrate an important limitation of generative AI: these models can reflect and reproduce societal biases present in their training data. Users should critically evaluate AI-generated content and be mindful of such biases when using these tools.
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Metadata
- container titleSensation & Perception V3
- publisherBates College
- publisher placeLewiston, ME
- rightsCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike 4.0
- rights holderTodd A. Kahan
- version3