Final answer:
Sensory systems encode stimulus duration, intensity, and changes through various mechanisms. Examples include visual system for duration, auditory system for intensity, and mechanosensory system for changes.
Step-by-step explanation:
The sensory systems encode stimulus duration, intensity, and changes through various mechanisms. For stimulus duration, let's take the example of visual system. Photoreceptor cells in our eyes respond differently to long-duration and short-duration light stimuli. The mechanism involves different neural pathways for processing sustained and transient visual stimuli.
For stimulus intensity, we can consider the auditory system. When a sound is louder, the hair cells in the cochlea get stimulated more vigorously, leading to more action potentials generated and signaling higher intensity.
Regarding stimulus changes (onset/offset), mechanosensory system exemplifies this. For instance, when our skin is touched, the mechanoreceptors respond initially to the onset of the stimulus, and then afferent axons carry the information about stimulus offset when it is removed.