Perception

Introduction
Perception is a complex cognitive process that is concerned with selection, organization and
interpretation of stimuli.
Perception is more active process in which sensory experience is carried through the nervous
system to the brain and interpreted. psychologist tend to view sensation as biological process and
perception as a cognitive process

Factors of Perception
There are two factors of perception:

Objective factors/stimulus field

There are numbers of characteristics of stimuli that influence our perception. here are following
Intensity
Size
Distinct and striking
Movement
Novelty
duration
repetition
apparent change
other factors

subjective factors/characteristic of perceiver

there are following characteristic of perceiver
motives or needs
interest and values
age
past experience
preparatory set
social and culture factors
1. social and cultural factors
2. social suggestion and prejudice

kinds of perception
Form perception
we are accustomed to organizing things in our mind into a form, shape, a melody or a
scene that makes up meaningful whole
For example, if we look at a clock, we dont see its parts, we perceive the whole
instrument that we recognize as timepiece.
 Size perception/perceptual constancy
In size perception, processing of perceptual stimuli occurs in both bottom-up and top
down fashion.
Bottom up perceiving refers to processing begins at the bottom with raw sensory
data that feed up to the brain.
Top down processing starts at the top from the observers expectations and
knowledge.
The bottom up and top- down processes occur simultaneously and interact with each
other, in our perception of world around us (kimchi,1992).
Perceptual constancy is the tendency to perceive in a consistent manner despite the
changing sensations that are received by our senses.
There are three types of constancy:
a) Size constancy
b) Shape constancy
c) Color constancy

Motion perception
Motion is perceived by following the progressive change of an objects position in space
with time. Here are two types of motion:

1. Real motion
The perception of the actual movement of objects in the world is termed as real
motion perception

2. Apparent motion
Apparent motion is movement perceived in the absence of physical movement of
an image across the retina. Let us look at the several types of apparent motion:
a) Induced motion
b) Phi phenomena
c) Stroboscopic motion
d) Auto kinetic motion

Space/ distance/ depth perception

The ability to view the world in three dimensions and to perceive distance is known as
depth perception