PERCEPTION

Our sense organs receive stimuli from the external world, but it's our mind that gives a meaning of what we receive. E.g., we receive a ball as a spherical object but through the brain interpretation of the image we perceive it as a ball.

Reception: is to receive stimuli (e.g. an image, sound) without

interpretation

Perception: is giving a meaning of what we receive.

We receive stimuli by our senses; each sense organ is responsible for the reception of a specific type of energy: 1- Visual sense receive light energy 2- Acoustic (hearing) sense receive acoustic energy 3- Tactile sense receive mechanical energy 4- Gustatory and olfactory senses receive chemical energy But our brain cannot deal with all types of energy, so all types of received energy should be transformed into an electric energy a process that we call ' transduction'

Perceptual selectivity: Paying attention

Selective attention is the process by which we select some stimuli for .further processing while ignoring others It was Gestalt psychologists' belief that we can only attend to one figure at a time with any sense modality. That is, we can only hear .one thing, or taste clearly at a time :Gestalt psychology and figure ground Gestalt is a German word. It means "whole" or configuration or totality. One of the basic principles in Gestalt psychology is that of the figure ground relationship. Of all the stimuli in your environment at any given time, those you attend to are said to be figure, the rest .become the ground

Figure and ground relationship ?What are the factors that affect this selection process :Two types of factors: Stimulus factors and personal factors :Stimulus factors- 1 a) Contrast: The most important factor in perceptual selectivity is contrast. It is the extent to which a given stimulus is in some physical way different .from the intensities of other stimuli around it b) Intensity: we are more likely to attend a stimulus if its intensity is different from the intensities of other stimuli c) Physical size: the bigger the stimulus, the more likely we are to attend to it. But when we are forced with many large stimuli, one that is smaller may .be the one we attend to d) Motion: A bird in flight is much clearer to see as a figure than a bird sitting in a bush. Once again, it is also easy to spot a motionless person against .the ground of moving bodies :Personal factors - 2 Personal characteristics affect our attention, they include : :a) Motivation We see what we want to see. When teachers want to draw the attention of a class they start talking about examinations

:b) Expectation It is not only that we perceive what we want to perceive but also we perceive what we expect to perceive. When we have developed an expectation, we say that we have formed a mental set. The mental set in perceiving a problem may interfere with our finding a solution to .that problem :c) Past experience It is the most important of personal factors in perceptual selectivity because it includes both motivational and mental set, much of our motivation comes from our past experience, and similarly, our .expectations develop largely from past experiences

Perceptual Organization
It is a central perceptual process that involves organizing the bits and the pieces of experience that are presented to our senses into a .meaning integrated, useful and organized whole There are many factors that organize our : perception Proximity -1 Events that occur close together in space or in time are generally .perceived as belonging together

Proximity

Similarity2 Stimulus events that have common properties tend to be grouped .together in our perception

Similarity Continuity -3 We tend to see things as ending up consistent with the way they started off. Lines (for ex) that start out straight should continue .straight

Continuity -Closure 4 We tend to perceive incomplete figures as whole and complete. This is our tendency to fill in gaps in our perceptual world. Closure occurs mainly during our every day conversations, when we fill the gap by .unmentioned words and understand what is being said

Other perceptual processes Perception is a cognitive process, but sensation is just simple reception of information. Perception involves recognition, identification and giving a meaning to stimuli. Other perceptual :processes include - The perception of depth and distance 1 The perception of motion- 2 The perceptual constancies- 3 The perception of depth and distance -1 We perceive the world three-dimensional although the light reflected from objects falls on two-dimensional retinas. That there is depth and distance in our world is not something we directly sense, it is :something we perceive through a) Ocular cues b) Physical cues (Ocular cues: a i) Binocular cues: mean cues that involve both eyes. One binocular cue from threedimensionality comes from the fact that our eyes are separated. Each retina is getting a different (disparate) view of the same object. This phenomenon is called retinal disparity. It is powerful cue that what .we are looking at must be solid or three-dimensional Convergence is another binocular cue due to depth and distance. As we focus on close objects, the two eyes converge. We interpret that .convergence as indicating that what we are looking at close to use ii) Monocular cues: When we focus on distant objects, accommodation flattens our lens and when we focus on nearby objects, our lens gets rounder. Thanks to the action of the ciliary muscles, our brain interprets these actions .in terms of distance :b) Physical cues These cues are used also by artists to create the impression of three.dimensionality on a two-dimensional paper

:The perception of motion-2 If we focus our attention on a flying moth, images of objects in the room stimulate successive rods and cones on the retina, but we perceive the moth the only moving thing, while other objects in the room are perceived as stationary. Because we know that we are moving our heads and eyes while focusing on the moth, our brain .compensates for this movement -The constancy of perception: 3 It is because of constancy that we can recognize a familiar object as being the same regardless how far away it is, the angle from which we view it or the color or intensity of the light that is reflected from it, without such constancy, each individual sensation would be viewed :as a new experience and little would appear familiar. There is a) Size constancy: It is the tendency to see objects as being of constant size regardless of the size of the retinal image. An object close to us may fill our visual field. At a distance, the image of the named object may take up only a fraction of the field. We know very well, however, that our object has not shrunk but has simply moved further away. Our tendency to view objects as remaining the same size depends on the depth .perception cues and our familiarity with the objects b) Shape constancy: It is the tendency to see objects as being of constant shape regardless .of the shape of the retinal image c) Brightness constancy: It is the tendency to see objects as being the same brightness .regardless of the intensity light reflected from them The white shirt you put on this morning may be sensed as grey when you pass through a shadow, or as black when the night fall, but it is still perceived as a white shirt as bright as it was this morning.