Perception is the psychological Phénomène which connects to us with the sensitive world via our direction.
The word Perception has a double direction: at the same time perception by the directions, and perception by the Spirit In Psychology, the Perception is the process of collection and treatment of the sensory Information.
In experimental Psychology, at the human being, one distinguishes perception conscious of perception Inconscient E, known as so implicit or subliminal E. This distinction was extended to the animal insofar as those can be trained to indicate if they perceived or not a Stimulus.
The perception of a situation calls at the same time with the directions and the Esprit.
Sensory perception
Sensory perception is perception " immédiate" that our directions deliver us, like direct information. The term of " Feeling " is sometimes used in a broader direction (also recovering the emotion S); one cannot thus retain it to name this form of perception. One distinguishes five direction delivering this information:
In cognitive Psychology, perception is defined like the reaction of the subject to an external stimulation which appears by chemical, neurological phenomena on the level of the bodies of the direction and on the level of the central Nervous system, as by various mechanisms which tend to adapt this reaction to its object by processes such as the representation of the object, the differentiation of this object compared to other objects.
Measure perception
The perceptive Phénomène S do not have a scale of continuous measurement. It is above all the temporal phenomena, i.e. their measurement is not constant for every moment (T). The Hearing and the Vue are the two directions which transmit the most important information to us over time and space; but the inequality between the sound radiations and the light radiations is for much at the origin of an obvious inequality between these directions. The threshold of feeling of a sound by the ear is located at 10-16 W, when the threshold of feeling of a specific source of light (with the naked eye) is located at 10-18 W. the sight is thus a direction reserved for the immediate one. Hearing, by conveying indications of another kind, informs us much more on what is field of the emotion, feelings: for example, in addition to it can carry more information, the voice on the telephone says some to us more on the “psychological” state of the interlocutor than a photograph.
Measure feeling
The measurable quantities learn to us only little from things on the perceived phenomena, as attest some the optical illusions where, for example, the same object can appear clearer to us or darker according to the brightness of the objects which surround it. The Psychologie of perception thus seeks to establish the bond which exists between the physical object and perception that one in A. The theories physicalists of the XIXe century tried to connect, in a bilateral and univocal way, physical feelings and sizes. The pragmatism of this research sought to express emotional sizes according to empirical data (degrees of hierarchy of perceptions, comparison of their nap and their difference), of the significant attributes according to physical measurements (definable a priori). The approach Psychophysique, thereafter, undertook to precisely measure our sensitivity to various physical parameters (like the Couleur or the sound intensity) in order to determine what would be the general laws of perception, like the Loi of Weber-Fechner. According to another approach, the currents inspired of the Psychologie of the form (Gestalt) sought to include/understand how perception around general principles was structured. For example, according to the principle of fence, a form will be more easily perceived if it is closed that if it is open; one finds an illustration of this principle in the Triangle of Kanizsa where a white triangle spontaneously is perceived whereas only three black discs are drawn. The visual illusions provide a potential explanation to the illusions of judgments or cognitive illusions. As examples, one can quote the well-known drawings of W.E. Hill (my wife and my mother-in-law as well as the drawing of the bearded man). The gestaltists worked much on these visual balances: foreground and background, clear zones and dark zones, convex and concave contours. Once the experiment made it possible to include/understand the duality of the image, the limitations in perception or the judgment can be easily overcome. As Goethe affirmed it, we see only what we know. And, " the discovery consists in seeing what everyone already saw and to think what nobody has yet pensé".
One can also mention the physiological approaches which seek to include/understand which are the mechanisms which as well allow perception the level of the bodies of the directions as of the Neuron S of the Nervous system.
Visual perception
The Vision is the perception of the radiations luminous by the visual Système.
The Perception of the faces is the capacity very specialized of the visual Système of the human being (and others Primate S) to recognize a Visage in a visual scene.
Mechanism of the sight: to see the Eye /r étine
Auditive perception
The branch of the psychology which studies the way in which we perceive the sounds is the Psychoacoustique.
Mechanism of the Hearing
The chain of hearing is complex. Its mechanisms are developed in the article Ouïe . The sounds transmitted by the air are collected and amplified by the house which focuses them towards the auditory canal until the tympanum, membrane which enters then in vibration. The chain of the ossicles transmits and amplifies these vibrations (mechanical conduction) and they are transmitted to the internal ear. They cause waves of pressure corresponding to the sound waves. These waves of pressure make it possible to communicate the vibrations with the most delicate part and more the intern of the human Oreille, the Cochlée. The mechanical waves make move the lashes of the internal ear, which activates the production of nerve impulses charged to transmit information to the auditive nerve, to the auditive cortex.
Olfactive perception
Olfactive perception is the perception forsaken of the human being and used perfectly by the animals. One however uses it without realizing it.Mechanism of will odora: to see the Nose.
Tactile perception
Tactile perception is the direction of perception compared to touched that the man tests.Mechanism of the touch: to see the Skin and the Nerve
Gustatory perception
It is the perception of the taste.Mechanism of the taste: to see the Language (anatomy) and the Palate (anatomy)
temporal Perception
If we have eyes to see, ears to hear and a nose to feel, we do not have sensory receivers dedicated to the perception of time. However we are however able to perceive the flow of time. The study of the Perception of time is thus confronted with a paradox which returns to the nature even of the Temps where meet the psychological experiments, the philosophical reflections and our comprehension of the operation of the Cerveau.
Temporal perception was the work object many since the first studies Psychophysique S at the XIXe century until explorations in cerebral Imagerie. The experimenters harnessed themselves to distinguish various types of phenomena which raise all of the perception of time:
- the perception of the durations
- the perception and production of rates/rhythms
- the perception of the temporal order and simultaneity
Perception of space
Just as the duration, the distances between the objects can be the subject of a perception. Thus, it is possible to say if such object is closer to us than such other or that so-and-so is taller than another. The argument to isolate a perception from space beside the physiological directions (such vision or hearing) rests on the observation that space information that one extracts from the environment seems to be supra-modal, i.e. shared between the various sensory methods. Thus it is possible to say if a sound comes from a visual object. The parietal Lobe of the Cerveau plays a big role in the perception of space.
See also: auditive Localization
Perception and audio-visual
Perception by the eye or the ear of the phenomena which surround us are limited by the receivers put in plays. The human ear on average collects the aural signals only in one range from 20 to 20000 Hertz. The eye; for its part is limited for a person to the lengths dondes ranging between 400nm and 700nm, it is the visible Lumière.
Moreover, it would seem that interpretation by the brain of the images transmitted by the eye cannot be regarded as certified copy with reality, but rather like references to images (or portions of images) already impregnated in the memory of the individual. It is thanks to that lon recognize a small piece of broken plate whereas a computer is completely lost to him.
Without speaking about the phenomena of retinal persistences, one uses into audio-visual the deficiencies of our perceptions to handle the sounds and the images so that they become smaller in term of occupied space without in so far as they do not lose their quality intrinsic of transport of information. One speaks then about Codage, of Compression of the Média.
The most advanced codec take into account in a very fine way the inperfections of our Perceptions to reach unknown compressions before work of the scientists on the perception of our five directions and the interpretation which is made by our brain of the received data.
Law of Weber-Fechner
Pierre Bouguer (1760), then Ernst Weber (1831) sought to determine the smallest perceptible physical variation of a stimulus. The Loi of Bouguer-Weber stipulated that the differential Seuil (smaller perceptible difference between two values of stimuli) increased linearly with the value of the stimulus standard. The doctor Gustav Fechner (inventive of the Psychophysical term ) amended this law, to make it valid to the extreme values stimuli: “the feeling varies like the logarithm of the excitation”. This distance of the sum of the causes and the transformations linear and closely connected getting the result, the effect, was made possible only when Fechner had introduced about 1860 the concept of threshold of feeling and had specified certain methods of investigation and observation which made it possible to locate them.
Intensive - extensive
Let us recall that one must with Bergson have denounced in his “Test on the immediate data of the conscience” what it calls the “illusion” consisting in confusing “the intensive and the extensive one”. Intensive values, a little obsolete term today, are values which increase per degrees, but that one can neither attach to a number, nor to attach to an extent; by opposition, the extensive one is referred, him, with an extent. For Bergson, we unconsciously associate what we feel with the cause of our impression; we feel a certain quantity, definite by contrast, the nuance, and we a little wrongly seek to define it by a size by objectifying a data which belongs into clean to the subjective conscience. However, “the feeling is a psychological fact which escapes any measurement.” Bergson does not deny the measurement of the differential thresholds of Weber which judges excitation, therefore cause. But he criticizes the amalgam of Fechner which puts the cause in the effect. He thus preaches a toughening of the thought which emphasizes more the subjective states. It is necessary, learns to us it, to restore the truth of the “immediate data of the conscience”. It today is known, the pseudo Loi of Weber-Fechner remains very approximate: it is about exact only in the zone of the median values. These theories physicalists operated in fact an appreciation too radical Psychophysique of the bond which links the subjective world of perceived and one or more measurable sizes.
Perception with the philosophical direction
In a complex environment, the intelligence of a situation calls upon a more total perception. The perception of complex situations can be blocked by cognitive Biais S. the phenomenon which can block the good perception of a situation is in particular the Illusion, but it can be as well of other forms of cognitive Biais S (cognitive Dissonances) or of the Sophisme S, on behalf of the people who exchange their point of view on a situation.
To guard itself against all these risks, it is important to cross the information sources, and to cross interpretations of these sources. Thus, the complex situations of the real-world require more coordinated qualification of the Information S, in which various types of perception intervene.
The division of information and their qualification, in a community or a company, call upon methods and cognitive Sciences.
Several philosophers are leaning on the phenomenon of perception.
Baruch Spinoza, in the treated reform of the understanding (1661 - 1677), distinguishes four modes from perception:
- perception by the directions (cf above),
- perception by the Experiment,
- perception by the deductive Reasoning ,
- perception by the Intuition.
Perception by the experiment is a process Empirique, which calls today upon Experimental methods sophisticated.
As much the first two types of perception (perception by the directions and the experiment) is individual, as much the Raisonnement, and especially the Intuition have collective implications: it is at this stage that an good intelligence (inter-ligere, in Latin, means to bind between) of a situation requires communities, where perceptions of the ones and others interact to lead to a structured vision of the unit. In Knowledge management, one speaks about Communautés of practice.
To give a point of view on a situation overall, the intuition can lead us to make generalizations of singular cases, i.e. to proceed by induction. Generalization can be dangerous, because the selected cases singular are not necessarily representative, and even they can be intentionally selected to arrive at a predetermined conclusion, which is a fallacious logic. Except for this reserve, induction is an essential complement of the deductive reasoning to perceive a complex situation.
Henri Bergson ( given immediate of the conscience ) took as a starting point Spinoza on the question of the Intuition.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty also studied the phenomenon of perception. Perception has, according to him, an active dimension as a paramount opening in the lived world (in Lebenswelt). Contrary to the Cartesian design of the thought, Merleau-Ponty estimates that the body is not only one potential object of study for science. It stresses that there are an inherency of the Conscience and body whose analysis of the Perception must hold account. The primacy of perception means primacy of the Expérience, insofar as perception revêt an active and constitutive dimension.
Reference
| Random links: | Cyrus II | Jean Stock | The Community of Villers-Cotterêts communes - Forest of Retz | Castle of Colditz | Araguari | Etymology of Perception |