Sensation & Perception

Sellers’ curious mix of “perfect vision” and face blindness illustrates the distinction
between sensation and perception. When she looks at a friend, her sensation is normal: Her
senses detect the same information yours would, and they transmit that information to her brain.

And her perception—the processes by which her brain organizes and interprets sensory input—
is almost normal. Thus, she may recognize people from their hair, gait, voice, or particular
physique, just not their face. Her experience is much like the struggle you or I would have trying
to recognize a specific penguin in a group of waddling penguins. In our everyday experiences,
sensation and perception blend into one continuous process.

Sensation the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and
represent stimulus energies from our environment.

Perception the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to

Vision

Light waves cross the cornea and enter the eye at the pupil. The eye’s lens focuses this
light so that the image is focused on a region of the retina known as the fovea. The fovea
contains cones that possess high levels of visual acuity and operate best in bright light
conditions. Rods are located throughout the retina and operate best under dim light conditions.
Visual information is translated by the rods and cones, is transmitted to the bipolar cells and on
to the ganglion cells which bundle together and leaves the eye via the optic nerve. Information
from each visual field is sent to the opposite side of the brain at the optic chiasm. Visual
information then moves through a number of brain sites before reaching the occipital lobe, where
it is processed.

Hearing

The ear can be separated into multiple sections. The outer ear includes the pinna, which
is the visible part of the ear that protrudes from our heads, the auditory canal, and the tympanic
membrane, or eardrum. The middle ear contains three tiny bones known as the ossicles, which
are named the malleus (or hammer), incus (or anvil), and the stapes (or stirrup). The inner ear
contains the semi-circular canals, which are involved in balance and movement (the vestibular
sense), and the cochlea. The cochlea is a fluid-filled, snail-shaped structure that contains the
sensory receptor cells (hair cells) of the auditory system

The Other Senses

Taste (gustation) and smell (olfaction) are chemical senses that employ receptors on the
tongue and in the nose that bind directly with taste and odor molecules in order to transmit
information to the brain for processing. Our ability to perceive touch, temperature, and pain is
mediated by a number of receptors and free nerve endings that are distributed throughout the
skin and various tissues of the body. The vestibular sense helps us maintain a sense of balance
through the response of hair cells in the utricle, saccule, and semi-circular canals that respond to
changes in head position and gravity. Our proprioceptive and kinesthetic systems provide
information about body position and body movement through receptors that detect stretch and
tension in the muscles, joints, tendons, and skin of the body.

Gestalt psychology

Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that looks at the human mind and behavior as a
whole. When trying to make sense of the world around us, Gestalt psychology suggests that we
do not simply focus on every small component. Instead, our minds tend to perceive objects as
elements of more complex systems.

A core belief in Gestalt psychology is holism, or that the whole is greater than the sum of
its parts. This school of psychology has played a major role in the modern development of the
study of human sensation and perception.
 Principles of Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt psychology helped introduce the idea that human perception is not just about
seeing what is actually present in the world around us. It is also heavily influenced by our
motivations and expectations.

Wertheimer created principles to explain how Gestalt perception functions. Some of the
most important principles of Gestalt theory are:

Prägnanz: This foundational principle states that we naturally perceive things in their
simplest form or organization.

Similarity: This Gestalt principle suggests that we naturally group similar items together
based on elements like color, size, and orientation. An example would be grouping dogs based on
whether they are small or large, or if they are big or small.

Proximity: The principle of proximity states that objects near each other tend to be
viewed as a group.

Continuity: According to this Gestalt principle, we perceive elements arranged on a line

Closure: This suggests that elements that form a closed object will be perceived as a
group. We will even fill in missing information to create closure and make sense of an object. An
example of this Gestalt psychology principle is using negative space to give the illusion that a
particular shape exists when it doesn't.

Common region: This Gestalt psychology principle states that we tend to group objects
together if they're located in the same bounded area. (For example, objects inside a box tend to
be considered a group.)

Illusions

Although our perception is very accurate, it is not perfect. Illusions occur when the
perceptual processes that normally help us correctly perceive the world around us are fooled by a
particular situation so that we see something that does not exist or that is incorrect.