What+is+Perception

= =  What is Perception? Perception is the way we organize, identify, and interpret sensory information in order to understand the world around us (Cherry, n.d.).

Involving the nervous system, perception is understood as a result from physical stimulation of the sensory organs that registers within our brains (Sternshein, n.d.).

= The Many Ways To Perceive =

According to Cherry, there are many ways to perceive the world around us through the many different senses we have including hearing, touch, sight, smell and taste. One of the newer additions to the above list of senses includes proprioception; which I will explain below.


 * Visual: involves light that strikes our retinas
 * Physical- involves the sensation of any surface registered through the nerve ending on our skin
 * Auditory- involves sound and pressure waves such as wavelength, frequency and amplitude that put pressure on the hairs within our ears
 * Taste- involves the properties of the foods we eat that register within the taste bud nerve endings on our tongues
 * Smell- involves odorous molecules that move pass the hairs within our nostril cavity and membranes
 * Proprioception- involves the ability to detect changes in the body's position and movement

For the purpose of this assignment we will focus on only one sense as a way to perceive: Visual

The Anatomy of Visual Perception If your wondering how on Earth this is relevant to illusions, bare with me; we got to get the basics down first. The anatomy of the eye helps us to understand the processes involved with perception and simple the theories that will be mention in the next portion of this wiki. Don't worry this is a very basic and quick run through. The way in which anatomical visual perception works is actually quite simple.

Referring to the above image, visual perception is accomplished through light waves that strike our eyes at varying degrees giving us information about our surroundings (note the tree). Initially, light is refracted off of a surface, as we look at this object, the refracted light passes through our cornea and onto the lens of the eye (note the dashed lines leading away from the tree and into the eye). The cornea's job is to refocus that light placing it on a specific part of our inner eye (seen where the two sets of dashed lines seem to merge together). Acting together, our cornea and lens invert the image we see and place it on our retina (as seen through the upside down tree at the rear of the eye). Once placed there, transduction,the process of converting a light wave into an electrical signal, occurs allowing our brain to perceive the incoming sensory information (represented by the arrow names "light"). Once it has been converted our brains can process the information and we become consciously aware of the stimulus (Cherry, n.d.).

Sound a little confusing? Check out this video below.

media type="youtube" key="u0ljaQp27TI" width="560" height="315" Video References // Test Your Brain: You Won't Believe Your Eyes [Video file]. (2011, October 24). Retrieved from [] //