perception
Sense perception is understood as the act of seeing what is there to be seen. But what is seen is influenced by the perceiver, the object, and the environment. The meaning of perception will be complete when all the three aspects are stressed. A few definitions of perception are given below:
(i) “Perception is the process of becoming aware of situations, of adding meaningful associations to sensations.”
(ii) “Perception can be defined as the process of receiving, selecting, organizing, interpreting, checking, and reacting to sensory stimuli or data.”
(iii) “Perception can be defined as a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environments.”
(iv) “Perception includes all those processes by which an individual receives information about his environment - seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling. The study of these perceptional processes shows that their functioning is affected by three classes of variables - the objects or events being perceived, the environment in which perception occurs, and the individual doing the perceiving.
We receive elementary inputs about the world through our senses and organize the bits and pieces of the input in ways that are advantageous to us in our attempts to deal with the world. The total process of receiving such inputs consists of four phases: stimulation, registration, organization and interpretation. Usually, however, it is the last phase which is referred to as perception. The efficacy of facts seems to dwindle progressively as the facts pass through the four successive phases.
The phase of interpretation or giving meaning to a stimulus is determined by external factors (stimulus characteristics) as well as personal factors such as the perceiver's own needs, prior experience, mental sets and emotions. In the context of person perception and social interaction, these personal factors operate rather insidiously; they are subliminal in
(i) “Perception is the process of becoming aware of situations, of adding meaningful associations to sensations.”
(ii) “Perception can be defined as the process of receiving, selecting, organizing, interpreting, checking, and reacting to sensory stimuli or data.”
(iii) “Perception can be defined as a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environments.”
(iv) “Perception includes all those processes by which an individual receives information about his environment - seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling. The study of these perceptional processes shows that their functioning is affected by three classes of variables - the objects or events being perceived, the environment in which perception occurs, and the individual doing the perceiving.
We receive elementary inputs about the world through our senses and organize the bits and pieces of the input in ways that are advantageous to us in our attempts to deal with the world. The total process of receiving such inputs consists of four phases: stimulation, registration, organization and interpretation. Usually, however, it is the last phase which is referred to as perception. The efficacy of facts seems to dwindle progressively as the facts pass through the four successive phases.
The phase of interpretation or giving meaning to a stimulus is determined by external factors (stimulus characteristics) as well as personal factors such as the perceiver's own needs, prior experience, mental sets and emotions. In the context of person perception and social interaction, these personal factors operate rather insidiously; they are subliminal in