Question # 2: Define Perception. Explain perceptual process model.

Perception:

In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of getting,

interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. It includes the collection
of data from sense organs through to the interpretation made by the brain
Perception is a lot more than just "information coming in".

The Perceptual Process

The perceptual process follows a series of steps which starts with an exposure to
stimuli and ends with an interpretation of the stimuli. The perceptual process is
usually unconscious which happens without our awareness and also for several
times in a day. The process of perception passes through the following stages

Selection

This is the first stage of perception which involves decision making about what needs
to be attended to, which can be unconscious sometimes and on other occasions can
be intentional. The world around us might present infinite stimuli, but our brain has
the capacity to attend to the stimuli selectively, which depends upon the
environmental factors or individual factors. When we attend to a stimulus selectively,
it is considered as attended stimulus. Selection is influenced by various factors such
as drives & motives, impulses and incentives for acting in a certain way. Emotional
drive in a number of ways can influence how we selectively attend to stimuli.

This has been explained with the help of the following examples:

 Selective Retention:

It means, we have a tendency to recall or retain that information which is

compatible with our interests, beliefs and values as opposed to those which
conflict with our interests, values or belief system, as a result of which we
 selectively organize the information. For example, a consumer may rationalize
the product purchase which they enjoy by considering only the health benefits
or the positive aspects of that product.

 Selective Perception:

It is the tendency to perceive only such information or things which we want to

perceive and completely ignore the opposing factors which are against our
beliefs, preferences or values. For example, a teacher may find all the good
qualities in her favourite student and may completely ignore the negative one
because of the perceptual bias.

 Selective Exposure:

We select and organize only that information to which we want to be exposed

to base on our past beliefs, perception or experiences.

Organization:

Once we have chosen to attend to a stimulus in the environment (consciously or

unconsciously, though usually the latter), the choice sets off a series of reactions in
our brain. This neural process starts with the activation of our sensory receptors
(touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing). The receptors transduce the input energy
into neural activity, which is transmitted to our brains, where we construct a mental
representation of the stimulus (or, in most cases, the multiple related stimuli) called a
percept. An ambiguous stimulus may be translated into multiple percepts,
experienced randomly, one at a time, in what is called “multi stable perception.”

Interpretation:
After we have attended to a stimulus, and our brains have received and organized

the information, we interpret it in a way that makes sense using our existing
information about the world. Interpretation simply means that we take the information
that we have sensed and organized and turn it into something that we can
categorize. For instance, in the Rubin’s Vase illusion mentioned earlier, some
individuals will interpret the sensory information as “vase,” while some will interpret it
as “faces.” This happens unconsciously thousands of times a day. By putting
different stimuli into categories, we can better understand and react to the world
around us