PERCEPTION

Ms. Rabika tul Ain Arshad

Lecturer Psychology, DMSS
Abasyn University, Islamabad
CHARACTERISTICS
PERCEPTUAL PROCESS
FACTORS
 TYPES/KINDS OF PERCEPTION
◦ We are required to perceive objects in different manners as compared to their
position in the environment.
1) Form perception
2) Perception constancy
3) Motion perception
4) Depth perception
5) Time perception
 1-FORM PERCEPTION
◦ We do not perceive the world around us as patches of color, variation in
brightness ,or loud sounds and voices.
◦ Instead we see trees, tables, buildings and cars; we hear automobile horns,
footsteps and words. Perception is a unified experience.
◦ If we look at a clock, for example, we don’t see parts, we perceive the whole
instrument that we recognize as timepiece
 Figure & Ground
◦ We tend to see things in a
figure and ground.
Figure: Refers to object
being perceived
Ground: Refers to the
background
2-PERCEPTUAL
CONTANCY
 3-MOTION PERCEPTION
◦ The process of inferring the speed and direction of elements in a sense based
on visual.
◦ Two types of motion:
i. Real Motion: The perception of the actual movement of objects in the world
is termed as “real motion/movement perception”
ii. Apparent Motion: It is movement in the absence of physical movement of
an image across the retina. This can be produced by a rapid succession of
motionless stimuli that minimize the change that occur in real movement
 4-DEPTH PERCEPTION
◦ Depth perception also acts as one of the types of perception psychology.
◦ It relates to the way the human eye identifies and contextualizes things in space.
◦ Depth perception is the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions (3D)
and the distance of an object.
◦ For instance, though the naked eye cannot see the end of a tunnel, it interprets its
possible depth through past experiences such as scientific measurements to know how
deep the tunnel can be.
◦ “Depth Perception” is the skill to perceive depth and distance e.g. we are able to judge
the distance of the incoming car, height of the cliff or of a roof top, size of an object,
weight of a sand bag etc, in a glance, just by having a look at it.
 5-TIME PERCEPTION
◦ We often perceive time in our normal daily life.
◦ Perception of time is less in children than in elders.
◦ Time perception is a field of study within psychology and neuroscience that
refers to the subjective experience of time, which is measured by someone's
own perception of the duration of the indefinite and continuous unfolding of
events.
◦ The perceived time interval between two successive events is referred to as
perceived duration.
Perceptual Errors
◦ Perception is the process of analyzing
and understanding a stimulus as it is.
◦ But it may not always be possible to
perceive the stimuli as they are.
◦ Knowingly or unknowingly, we mistake
the stimulus and perceive it wrongly.
Cont.
◦ Many times the prejudices in the individual, time of perception, unfavorable
background, lack of clarity of stimulus, confusion, conflict in mind, and other
factors are responsible for errors in perception.
◦ Some common types of errors in perception are,
• Illusion.
• Hallucination.
• Halo Effect.
• Horn Effect.
Illusion
◦ The illusion is a false perception. Here the
person will mistake a stimulus and
perceive it wrongly.
◦ For example, in the dark, a rope is
mistaken for a snake or vice versa. The
voice of an unknown person is mistaken as
a friend’s voice. A person standing at a
distance who is not known may be
perceived as a known person.
Hallucination
◦ Hallucination is false perception. Here, a person experiences of
the stimulus even in the absence of it.
◦ A hallucination is a mental state in which a person begins to
perceive something in spite of the absence of any external
stimulus.
◦ For example, at night a person may see a ghost when practically
there is no stimulus either in the form of a human figure or
anything resembling it. This is a case of hallucination.
Halo Effect