Perception involves the organization, interpretation, and conscious experience of those sensations. Sensory adaptation, selective attention, and signal detection theory can help explain what is perceived and what is not.

Both light and sound can be described in terms of wave forms with physical characteristics like amplitude, wavelength, and timbre. Wavelength and frequency are inversely related so that longer waves have lower frequencies, and shorter waves have higher frequencies.

perception — way that sensory information is interpreted and consciously experienced. sensation — what happens when sensory information is detected by a sensory receptor. light wave’s wavelength — generally associated with color, and its amplitude is associated with brightness. timbre — descriptive term which refers to a sound’s quality; impacted by the interplay of frequency, amplitude, and timing of sound waves.