SENSE PERCEPTION

ONE OF THE WAYS OF KNOWING (WOK)

VIDEO
 TOK LINKS TO
We perceive the world through our five senses. BIOLOGY!

(Hearing, Sight, Smell, Touch, Taste)

1. Our sense receptors are stimulated by sensory information.

2. The brain translates the sensory information into sensations such as

sound, taste, temperature, etc.

3. Higher centers in the brain either ignore or recognize the sensations

and their meanings, based on neuronal networks of past association
and expectation. (Some of this stage 3 work actually involves
reasoning).
Colour picure
TAPPING THE
SONG
“experiment”
Optical Illusions
Things that affect sense perception

What we perceive depends on what is important and interesting at the time for
each person. Our perceptions and conceptions are affected by things such as:

 biases
 motivations
 emotions
 cultural perspectives
 interests
 expectations and
 background experiences (existing knowledge)
When is perception, not "Sense Perception"
A very common mistake is for students to start talking about perception the
wrong way.

You might want to use examples of two people "thinking differently" about
the same thing --such as the half-full vs half-empty example on the right.

This is NOT perception the way we talk about it in TOK.

Students need to be very careful to not make this mistake. For us, when
we're 'doing TOK' we're focused on sense perception..
RLS

Shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri

On August 9th, 2015 in Ferguson, Missouri, Michael Brown, an unarmed African

American teenager was shot and killed by a police officer.
Witnesses who saw the event agree that the officer fired his gun in his car, then got out
of his car and started firing at Brown. After this, Brown stopped, turned around and
faced the officer.
Accounts of the incident vary greatly, in terms of what happened next.
Some say that Brown moved toward the officer in a threatening manner. Others say
that Brown was not moving and possibly even had his hands up when the officer shot
and killed the 18 year old.

This example involves sense perception, but it's not entirely about sense perception. For
example, perhaps the witnesses all actually saw the same thing (sense perception), but
they remember it differently (memory) because of the conversations they had with
others (language). If you want to use this as a sense perception example, you need to
stay focused on the sense perception aspect.
Sense Perception KQ
(Key words: empiricism/empirical, brain filters)

1. To what extent is sense perception more trustworthy than reason?

2. What role does eyewitness testimony play in history?

3. What role do our senses play in the construction of reality?

4. What is the role of culture and language in the perceptual process?

5. What role does perception play in different areas of knowledge?

Sense Perception Quotes
 "The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."
(Henri Bergson)

 "A fool sees not the same tree that the wise man sees.
(William Blake)

 "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
(Mark Twain)

 "Two thirds of what we see is behind our eyes."

(Chinese proverb)
Sources:

1. Woods, Tim. “Sense Perception Notes - Theory of Knowledge ” IBMastery 2

April 2017. Web, 8.9.2019, 9:50 a.m. https://www.ibmastery.com/blog/sense-
perception-notes-theory-of-knowledge
2. Netflix, The Brain Games series
3. https://www.sciencealert.com/crazy-optical-illusion-makes-your-brain-see-
colour-in-a-black-and-white-photo, 8.9.2019, 10:00 a.m.
4. https://phys.org/news/2019-08-caterpillars-peppered-moth-skin.html, 9.9., 7:20 a.m.