Perception
When I embarked upon this study of human perception, I did not anticipate learning any information that I would find new or exciting. After all, I had been perceiving things my entire life, and therefore felt experience had taught me all I needed to know about perception. However, as we continued to study perception, I began to understand that I had long confused my perception of reality with reality. This understanding had a dramatic impact on my approach to life: I began to teach my peers and professors with more respect and understanding, I developed a greater appreciation for philosophy and literature, and I began to question my own perceptions.
Perception and reality peacefully co-exist the majority of the time, but occasionally throw each other curve balls. Interestingly enough, nature has adapted to include some of these differences between perception and reality. There are species of both plant and animal that camouflage themselves so that predators will look at them and think they see a larger predator, rather than a prey species. Other species, such as the walking stick, camouflage themselves so that predators see nothing when they look at them. In this way, nature recognizes the differences between perception and reality.
For example, I used to believe that what I saw necessarily reflected reality. However, the drawings of M.C. Escher reminded me of nature's tricks concerning reality and perception. Looking at the drawings, I see one thing. Upon a closer look, I realize that what I believed I saw is impossible. Given that so much of perception is based upon experience and a person's ability to fill in the gaps between what they perceive and what they know to be "real," I had to wonder what in my reality allowed me to view things that did not exist. Thinking about that led me to wonder about the differences between my reality and the reality...
The auditory sense relies on differentiated structures in the form of auditory nerve bundles in the ear that route different types of sounds to different parts of the brain for interpretation. The olfactory and gustatory senses are closely related and both transmit information to the cortex and to the amygdale and hippocampus (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008). Generally, structures in the nose produce chemical responses to specific scents which they transmit
By that time, several guards had become sadistic and the behavior of the prisoners provided clear indications of psychological breakdown. Interviews with study participants suggested that merely the perception of their respective roles influenced their behavior. More importantly, the groupthink that prevailed within the group of prison guards overcame any individual personal reluctance they may have had to treat their prisoners so harshly (Macionis 2003). The Significance of the
Psychology The Field of Psychology: An Overview of Foundations, Influence and Pertinence in Today's World One of the most fascinating and complex fields of study in today's scientific world is psychology, the scientific examination of human behavior. Psychologists, as professionals, can prove to be an extremely useful resource, especially since mental disorders tend to be just as complicated as physical disorders, and, often, much less apparent. The field of psychology has grown tremendously
Perception is our own individual sense of the world we live in and it is comprised of our recognition of stimuli in the environment as well as actions made in response to these environmental stimuli (Cherry, 2012). The function and purpose of the process of perception is to provide us with information regarding the environment that is necessary for continued survival (Cherry, 2012). Furthermore, perception dictates the way our environment
In principle, Freud views the development of human personality as largely attributable to neurological functions representing particular components of personality rather than neurological structures, and in that sense, his prescient views predating the technology that would later confirm the neurological basis of human perception and behavior by a full half-century (Dennet 1991). On the other hand, the detailed descriptions provided by Freud for the precise conflicts and interactions among
If we were to lose our perception of depth, we might indeed fall off of the cliff: even if we could sense the change of color we might mistakenly believe that the ground and the depths below were on the same plane. Auditory illusions have similar effects and can cause people to distort reality. One of the most notable examples of auditory illusions causing a distortion of reality is
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