Copyright ©Mark Nelson, 2002. All rights reserved.
Chapter 10: The Coding and Control of Sensory Information
What you need to know
(exam questions will be a drawn from this subset of material)
How is information about stimulus strength usually encoded by sensory
afferents? (p. 234-235)
How does the coding of stimulus strength differ for tonic and phasic
sensory afferents? (p. 234-235)
How are other qualities of the stimulus (e.g. position, wavelength,
frequency, etc.) encoded by sensory afferents? (p. 235-237)
What are some neurobiological examples of a labeled line code? (p. 236-237)
What are some neurobiological examples of an across-fiber (population)
code? (p. 238-240)
What does it mean for a sense organ to be under efferent control? (p. 243)
What functional benefits are derived from efferent control of sense organs
? (p. 243)
What are muscle spindle organs? (p. 244-245)
What are extrafusal and intrafusal muscle fibers; which ones are muscle
spindle organs associated with? (p. 244-245)
What is the functional role of muscle spindle organs? (p. 245-248)
What is sensory reafference? (p. 249-250)
How does efferent control influence sensory reafference? (p. 249-250)
What is an example of efferent control in protecting a sense organ from
physical damage? (p. 250)
What is an example of efferent control in selective suppression of sensory
input? (p. 250-251)