Thought Log #3

Perception is an individual’s standpoint on something and how they view it. With perception, we use our 5 senses- sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, and cognitive thinking to interpret it. Currently in Psychology class, we are also discussing about perceptions and also, perceptual illusions.

Perception plays a huge role in knowledge because I believe perception is how we learn. By using our 5 senses, we are making a meaningful connection to everything we see, touch, hear, smell, and taste. Our brain organizes everything we do and most of the time, it does in a way that actually make sense to us and way that we can relate to. Every time you experience something new, you will most likely make a mental note of it and by that, I mean you will store that new information based on what it looked like, smelled like, feel like, sound like, and taste like. So next time, you will know what to expect. This creates something called a schema or prototype, a general idea or knowledge of something. Everyone perceives things differently and that’s what makes us all unique. For example, one day in class, we were shown pictures of optical illusions that actually had a double image. One of the pictures asked ” Is this picture a picture of a old woman or a young woman?” You can actually see both the young and the old lady depending on how you looked at it,  but in the very beginning, not everyone saw both. Some saw the young lady and couldn’t see the old lady and others saw the old lady but couldn’t see the young lady. Sometimes, it is easier to spot something because you can relate to it or have some sort of connection. Eventually, everyone saw both images when it was pointed out.

Perception and mistakes… I believe perception is what causes the mistakes. A misunderstanding of the 5 senses and the way it is used can lead to a mistake. Since no one sees things the same, that can also lead to an argument and then cause trouble. For example, for hearing, you may not have heard the teacher give out a homework assignment or you thought you heard one thing and it wasn’t that; that’s a mistake due to misconception. There are situations where misinterpreting something can be very critical. In Psychology, we talked about the different ways we look at things and why they happen including: monocular cues and perceptual constancies. Back then, when technology just started to bloom and we had airplanes, there were many accidents due to misinterpretation. Many of these accidents happened at night. When pilots are flying at night, it is hard to judge distance, for example, the lights on the ground for when they are landing. They either will fly too low and cause some damage to the landing gear or they will fly too high, thinking they are on the ground, and run out of runway space. Now, they have people monitoring all this from the control towers and such. Our senses tend to deceive us at times and that is what causes these mistakes.