Perception, in psychology, mental organization and interpretation of sensory information. The GestaltGer.,=form, school of psychology that interprets phenomena as organized wholes rather than as aggregates of distinct parts, maintaining that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Click the link for more information. psychologists studied extensively the ways in which people organize and select from the vast array of stimuli that are presented to them, concentrating particularly on visual stimuli. Perception is influenced by a variety of factors, including the intensity and physical dimensions of the stimulus; such activities of the sense organs as effects of preceding stimulation; the subject's past experience; attention factors such as readiness to respond to a stimulus; and motivation and emotional state of the subject.

Perception is the process of recognizing and interpreting sensory stimuli. Crash wheels download free. Learn the definition of perception, how it is related to the five senses, how it differs from reality, and more. Define perception. Perception synonyms, perception pronunciation, perception translation, English dictionary definition of perception. The process of perceiving something with the senses: the perception of a faint sound. An instance of this: sense perceptions.

Knives out stories. Stimulus elements in visual organization form perceived patterns according to their nearness to each other, their similarity, the tendency for the subject to perceive complete figures, and the ability of the subject to distinguish important figures from background. Perceptual constancy is the tendency of a subject to interpret one object in the same manner, regardless of such variations as distance, angle of sight, or brightness.

Through selective attention, the subject focuses on a limited number of stimuli, and ignores those that are considered less important. Depth perception, considered to be innate in most animals, is produced by a variety of visual cues indicating perspective, and by a slight disparity in the images of an object on the two retinas. An absolute threshold is the minimal physical intensity of a stimulus that a subject can normally perceive, whereas a difference threshold is the minimal amount of change in a stimulus that can be consciously detected by the subject. Recent studies have shown that stimuli are actually perceived in the brain, while sensory organs merely gather the signals. William Dobelle's research, for instance, has offered significant hope for the blind. PerceptionThose subjective experiences of objects or events that ordinarily result from stimulation of the receptor organs of the body. This stimulation is transformed or encoded into neural activity (by specialized receptor mechanisms) and is relayed to more central regions of the nervous system where further neural processing occurs.

Most likely, it is the final neural processing in the brain that underlies or causes perceptual experience, and so perceptionlike experiences can sometimes occur without external stimulation of the receptor organs, as in dreams.In contemporary psychology, interest generally focuses on perception or the apprehension of objects or events, rather than simply on sensation or sensory process. While no sharp line of demarcation between these topics exists, it is fair to say that sensory qualities are generally explicable on the basis of mechanisms within the receptor organ, whereas object and event perception entails higher-level activity of the brain.

See,Since objects or events are not experienced only through vision, the term perception obviously applies to other sense modalities as well. Certainly things and their movement may be experienced through the sense of touch. Such experiences derive from receptors in the skin (tactile perception), but more importantly, from the positioning of the fingers with respect to one another when an object is grasped, the latter information arising from receptors in the muscles and joints (haptic or tactual perception). The position of the parts of the body are also perceived with respect to one another whether they are stationary (proprioception) or in motion (kinesthesis), and the position of the body is experienced with respect to the environment through receptors sensitive to gravity such as those in the vestibular apparatus in the inner ear. Auditory perception yields recognition of the location of sound sources and of structures such as melodies and speech. Other sense modalities such as taste (gustation), smell (olfaction), pain, and temperature provide sensory qualities but not perceptual structures as do vision, audition, and touch, and thus are usually dealt with as sensory processes.

ConstancyBy and large, these perceptual properties of objects remain remarkably constant despite variations in distance, slant, and retinal locus caused by movements of the observer. A central problem is whether the perception of properties such as form and depth is innately determined or is based on past experience. By “innate” it is meant that the perception is the result of evolutionary adaptation and thus is present at birth or when the necessary neural maturation has occurred. By “past experience” it is meant that the perception in question is the end result of prior exposure to certain relevant patterns or conditions, a kind of learning process. Despite centuries of discussion of this problem, and considerable experimental work, there is still no final answer to the question.

It now seems clear that certain kinds of perception are innate, but equally clear that past experience also is a determining factor. See perception the reception and interpretation of stimuli. This involves sensory mechanisms and cognitive appraisal, and is influenced by prior learning experiences, emotional state, and current expectations. The significance of the term for sociologists is in acknowledgement of the individual interpretation of events which is socially and culturally influenced. Thus, have a perceptual aspect. A complex system of receiving and transforming information that provides an organism with a reflection of objective reality and an orientation toward the surrounding world.With sensation, perception is the starting point of cognition, supplying primary material derived from the senses. Since it is a necessary condition for cognition, perception in this process is always mediated in one way or another by the activity of thought and is verified by practical experience.

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