Information AboutPerception |
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In Psychology and the Cognitive Science s, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing Sensory Information . Methods of studying perception range from essentially Biological or Physiological approaches, through Psychological approaches to the often abstract ' Thought-experiment s' of Mental Philosophy . HISTORY OF THE STUDIES OF PERCEPTION Perception is one of the oldest fields within scientific psychology, and there are correspondingly many theories about its underlying processes. The oldest quantitative law in psychology is the Weber-Fechner Law , which quantifies the relationship between the intensity of physical stimuli and their perceptual effects. It was the study of perception that gave rise to the Gestalt school of psychology, with its emphasis on Holistic approaches. PERCEPTION AND REALITY Many Cognitive Psychologists hold that, as we move about in the world, we create a Model of how the world works. That is, we sense the objective world, but our sensations map to Percept s, and these percepts are provisional, in the same sense that scientific hypotheses are provisional (cf. in the Scientific Method ). As we acquire new information, our percepts shift. has multiple interpretations on the perceptual level. Just as one object can give rise to multiple percepts, so an object may fail to give rise to any percept at all: if the percept has no grounding in a person's experience, the person may literally not perceive it. This confusing Ambiguity of perception is exploited in human technologies such as Camouflage , and also in biological Mimicry , for example by Peacock Butterflies , whose wings bear eye markings that birds respond to as though they were the eyes of a dangerous Predator . . SEE ALSO |