The sensory systems described in this chapter are key to your success on Test Day. Not only are the eye, ear, and other senses high-yield in their own right, but connections to topics in physics, biology, research design, and other concepts in the behavioral sciences make these key topics for passages. But sensation is only one part of the system; we must then take this raw information and process it in the brain to truly perceive the world around us. We use complex neurological pathways to integrate and sort sensory information. We then process it through multiple systems, analyzing individual features and components of the environment while building expectations based on our memories and past experiences. We fill in gaps in our sensorium using Gestalt principles. And all that reaches our conscious awareness is the final product: a cohesive concept of the world around us.
You’ve completed your vacation in Europe. You used your rods and cones to see the sites, your chemoreceptors to taste and smell the local food, your hair cells to listen to the local music, and your kinesthetic and vestibular senses to help navigate through physical spaces. As you get ready to board the plane for home, all you’re left with are your memories—a topic we’ll turn to in the next chapter.