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PerceptionIn psychology and the cognitive sciences, 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-experiments' of mental philosophy.
The senses
Human perception depends on the five senses of Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste and Touch along with the often neglected sense of proprioception. Beyond these, some believe in the existence of other senses such as precognition (or foretelling) or telepathy (direct communication between human minds/brains without transmittance through any other medium). While these are controversial, it is known that animals of other species possess senses that are not found in humans: for example, some fish can detect electric fields, while pigeons have been shown to detect magnetic fields and to use them in homing.
History of the study of perception
The subjective nature of perception, and hence of cognition, has attracted the attention of philosophers since antiquity, for example in the qualia which have been known since the Sufi thinkers, or in the extreme idealism of George Berkeley.
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 percepts, 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. Abraham Pais' biography refers to the 'esemplastic' nature of imagination. In the case of visual perception, some people can actually see the percept shift in their mind's eye. Others who are not picture thinkerss, may not necessarily perceive the 'shape-shifting' as their world changes. The 'esemplastic' nature has been shown by experiment: an ambiguous image 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.
These 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
External links
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IllusionWorks
A multimedia museum of optical and sensory illusions, with on-line demonstrations and explanations.
http://psylux.psych.tu-dresden.de/i1/kaw/diverses%20Material/www.illusionworks.com/
Shilling, Russell - Spatial Audio and Human Factors Research
Contains links laboratory research as well as links to the Navy Aerospace Experimental Psychology website, which Dr. Shilling edits.
http://home.earthlink.net/~shillingr/
The Noh Mask Effect
Demonstrates illusory facial expression perception with Japanese Noh masks. Links to publications about the effect.
http://www.mis.atr.co.jp/~mlyons/Noh/noh_mask.html
The Blanking Phenomenon
Contains information on a visual illusion.
http://www2.uic.edu/%7Ejmcana1/Blanking.html
J. Jason McAnany
This site contains information pertaining to ongoing vision research.
http://www2.uic.edu/~jmcana1/
Mind Bluff
A family-friendly collection of tactile illusions, mental deceptions, optical tricks, brain puzzlers, and feeling games to play on the self.
http://mindbluff.com
Sensation and Perception Tutorials
A small collection of tutorials and demonstrations in sensation and perception.
http://psych.hanover.edu/Krantz/sen_tut.html
Auditory Perception Cognition and Action Meeting: APCAM
The goal of APCAM is to bring together researchers from various theoretical perspectives to present focused research on auditory cognition, perception, and action.
http://www.wooster.edu/apcam/
The Moon Illusion Explained
A relatively new theory is offered for the classic illusion that the moon's constant subtended visual angle of half a degree appears larger for the horizon moon than for the zenith moon.
http://facstaff.uww.edu/mccreadd/
The Poggendorff Illusion
A study attributing the illusion to summed effects of cardinal axes in the observer's field of view and of salient axes in the figures.
http://www.soapsheet.com
Neuhoff, John - Auditory Perception Research
Electronic reprints of relevant publications on pitch, loudness, localization, and auditory display. (College of Wooster, USA)
http://jneuhoff.com/
Optical Flow Estimation Bibliography
Mainly algorithms (up-to-date; compiled by Laurenz Wiskott at The Salk Institute).
http://itb.biologie.hu-berlin.de/~wiskott/
Affective Epistemology
Affective epistemology is based on the idea that there is a way of knowing which transcends, specific perceptual frames. This idea is predicated on affective components as indicating the quality of a given perception, thought form, or way of being in the consciousness of human beings and other sentient life.
http://neoscience.org/affectiv.htm
MindJava
Providing insight into memory formation, cognition, and learning.
http://mindjava.com
Vision Laboratory Macquarie University
Contains information about current research into human visual perception. Features material from some of the courses run by the psychology department and information about staff and students.s
http://vision.psy.mq.edu.au/
Chronological History of Vision Research
Useful chronology by Jack Yellott.
http://www.socsci.uci.edu/cogsci/vision/yellott_dates.html
The Fascinating Concept of Subliminal Messages
Commentary by petitecute (Little Miss Soapbox). Leave your feedback.
http://petitecute.home.att.net/subliminal.htm
The Logarithmic Time Perception Hypothesis
Logtime is the psychochronometric hypothesis that our age is our basis for estimating long time intervals, resulting in a perceived logarithmic shrinkage of our years as we grow older.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jmkenney
Fechner Day 2001
International Society for Psychophysics conference celebrating 200th birthday of Fechner, held in Liepzig. Program and full text of proceedings, in PDF.
http://www.uni-leipzig.de/fechnerday/
Godric's World - Sound
A tutorial about sound that has many graphics that can be incorporated into a presentation or lecture on the topic.
http://www.gozen.demon.co.uk/godric/godric.html
Optical Illusions by Psych ARTS
We think we perceive objective reality, but perception is always altered by invisible biases. We are never free of the state-dependent bias, and so we are continually taken in by an illusion.
http://www.psycharts.com/opt_illus.html
The Manifold of Sense
A survey of the discourse regarding emotions, sensations, and an attempt at producing an integrative approach to sensation and perception.
http://samvak.tripod.com/sense.html
Smarandache's Law
An improvement of Weber's and Fechner's Laws on sensations and stimuli. A paradoxical complex, an optical illusion, and a test of intelligence.
http://www.gallup.unm.edu/~smarandache/psychology.htm
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