Psychoology Essay Research Paper Visual sensation differs

Psychoology Essay, Research Paper

Visual sensation differs from visual perception even though the two processes form a sequence. Our brain obtains meaning from what we look at through the process of sensation and perception (Grivas Down & Carter pg 77). Though the two systems interact they both serve a different purpose. Sensation is a physiological process which involves the ” reception and transduction of information and its transmission to the brain.”

(Grivas Down & Carter pg 77). In other words sensation involves collecting the sensory

data, converting it to electromagnetic energy and sending this information to the brain.

After the sensation process comes perception. ” Perception is a mental process of organising sensations into meaningful patterns.”(Coon glossary pg 15).

Visual perception is influenced by emotional states, motivation and many other

psychological factors. So visual sensation is the organisation of the information our sensory receptors receive, and visual perception is the organising and interpreting of the sensations. This shows the distinctions between visual sensation and visual perception.

The above demonstrates that the sensory system receives the same data via the sensation

process but each individuals perception system interprets it differently. An example of this might be when my mother and I go shopping together. She usually wants me to buy

things that she likes but I generally think they look disgusting. Even though we are both looking at the same thing we both have different perceptions of what is fashionable.

There are several visual perception principles which play part in the way we

perceive things. One of these is size constancy. Size constancy is something we must learn through our life experience. Size constancy occurs when ” The perceived size of an

object remains the same even though the size of the image it casts on the retina changes.”

(Coon pg 120). An example of size constancy might be when flying in a plane. When I look out the window and view the world below if I were to look at a house it would look to be the size of a small dot. I know, Through the principle of size constancy that the house hasn’t shrunk. So my brain draws on past experience to help me perceive the house accurately. Empirical research indicates that size constancy is something that is learned.

This is supported by Colin Turnbull’s experiment (Coon pg 120-121). Turnbull took a pygmy from his home in a dense rainforest. An environment which was so dense that the pygmy would never have been able to perceive things from the distance. When taken to the vast African plains the pygmy identified a herd of buffalo in the distance to be a swarm of insects. As the pygmy went towards the ’swarm’ he discovered they were buffalo’s. Turnbull concluded that the principle of size constancy is learned. One has to question the validity of this experiment however as it is based on only one person.

Depth cues are another type of perceptual principle. Several depth cues combine

to help us perceive three dimensional space.(Coon pg 125). Convergence is a binocular depth cue, it’s ” the simultaneous turning inward of the two eyes as they focus on nearby objects.”(Coon glossary pg 5). When we look at an object such as a tree in the distance

our eyes don’t need to converge to focus on it. This is because our lines of vision are almost parallel. However, if we want to focus on something closer, for example a piece of paper our eyes must converge in order to focus. Convergence shows the relationship between muscle sensations and distance.(Coon pg 126). Convergence occurs naturally

and it’s something that we are generally unaware of . A group of muscles attached to our eyes control convergence. ” These muscles feed information of the eye position to the brain to help it judge distances.”(Coon pg 126).

Another depth cue is interposition. This is a perception principle we use frequently. ” Interposition refers to the fact that an object which is close to us will bock or obscure something which is further away.” (Clarke & Gillet pg 105). An example of this might be if we were looking at a tree. If someone were to stand next to the tree we would not know which of the two were closest to us. If that person were to stand in front of the tree however, our depth cues would tell us through the principle of interposition

that the person is closer. We would also know that the part of the tree that is partially obscured has not disappeared.

” There are many other mental factors which can affect the way in which our sensory information is interpreted.” (Grivas Down & Carter pg 86). Therefore these

factors effect our visual perception of things. These psychological factors are things such as prior experience, expectancy, attention, motives, habituation and hypothesis testing.

It’s these factors which help to create the individual differences in perception between people. One psychological factor which effects our perception is hypothesis testing.

The sensory information our brain receives is sometimes hard to interpret. When this occurs our brains make an educated guess or a perceptual hypothesis as to what we are seeing.(Clarke & Gillet pg 88).An example is when I see

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