Skip to content
PlayOwl

History, Civics & Social Studies · Grade 11

Sensation, Perception and Cognition

Our senses collect information, but our brains construct what we experience and think. Learners study transduction, thresholds and Weber's law; bottom-up and top-down processing, grouping principles and illusions; selective attention, inattentional blindness and change blindness; and the mental shortcuts (availability, anchoring, representativeness) and confirmation bias that shape judgment. They connect classic studies to everyday reasoning and to evaluating evidence.

  • 4 lessons
  • About 135 minutes
  • Perception and cognition check: 9 questions
  • Ways to answer: fill in the blanks, choose an answer, highlight a text, match pairs, type a number and sort into groups
Try it now (no account) One of the five free starter courses Open in PlayOwl

What learners will discover

  • Explain transduction, absolute and difference thresholds, sensory adaptation and Weber's law.
  • Distinguish bottom-up from top-down processing and explain how expectations and grouping shape perception.
  • Explain selective attention, inattentional blindness and change blindness using classic studies.
  • Identify heuristics and biases in judgments and explain how they can mislead reasoning about evidence.

Lessons

  1. Sensation 4 steps3 practiceabout 32 min
  2. Perception 4 steps3 practiceabout 33 min
  3. Attention 4 steps3 practiceabout 34 min
  4. Heuristics and biases 5 steps4 practiceabout 36 min
  5. Perception and cognition check 9 questions at the end

Keep exploring

More 11th grade social studies

Guide for grown-ups