Perception And Perception Of Perception

Everyday different stimuli around us will be stimulating our sense organs. Many of these stimuli are received by our sense organs and are converted into sensations.These sensations are transmitted to the concerned parts of brain.In turn the brain will interpret these sensations. It is only after such interpretation we understand what the stimulus is.

Hence in understanding the world around us, attention occurs first, followed by sensation and finally interpretation by brain.

This process of ‘interpretation of stimulus is known as perception’. So perception involves two processes: sensation interpretation. But interpretation of any stimulus requires past experience also. For example, a child who has not seen an elephant earlier either in photo

Target: The characteristics of the stimuli also affect how an individual perceives it. For example, vocal employees are more likely to be noticed in a team meeting than the non-vocal employees. Uniqueness, motion, sound, size, and other characteristics of a target affect the way in which it is perceived by individuals. This is because individuals don’t observe targets (stimuli) in isolation. The relationship of a target to its background influences perception. Moreover, individuals tend to group together persons, objects, or events that are similar to each other. The more similarity between the targets, the more an individual tends to perceive them as a collective group. For example, individuals tend to perceive people belonging to a nation as alike in more than one category, irrespective of their individual characteristics being clearly distinguishable from one

Sensory limits and thresholds: The human sensory organs have nerves, which respond to different forms of energy they receive in different ways. For instance, the eyes receive light rays and convert them into electrical energy. The electrical energy is transmitted to the brain creating the sensation of vision leading to perception. Each sense receptor needs a minimum level of energy for perception to take place. This level is called the absolute threshold, which refers to the point below which sensory organs do not perceive energy. The differential threshold is the minimum amount by which two like stimuli should differ in order to be perceived as distinct. Therefore, sensory limits and differential threshold affect the perception