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Attention & Perception

Attending to an object is to bring that object into consciousness. To perceive

an object, to think about it, to solve some problem, or to remember it is
not possible without attending to it. Attention is the heart of the conscious
process and is basic to all mental activity and behaviour. Attention precedes all
mental activity.

Nature of Attention: Attention is concentrated awareness of a selected aspect

of our environment. We are said to be attending to an object when our sense
activity is focussed on any one particular stimulus.

Attention is not just looking on. It is an active process involving give and take
with the environment. When we attend to anything, we are inclined to do
something about it. Attention is a process of adjustment. By attending, the
individual adjusts himself to the inner needs or outer stimuli.

Importance of Attention: : In the

1. first place, by attending, sensory discrimination is improved, At any one

moment we are conscious of a large number of things; but attention
separates its objects from the rest and enables us to observe it carefully.
2. Attention directs our energies as we respond to some objects and ignore
others. To be attentive is to concentrate one’s efforts in a certain
direction so that the things and ideas we attend to are relevant to our
needs and purposes.
3. Attention increases efficiency as it helps us to get ready to meet any
situation. It prepares us to respond immediately. It is a preparatory
adjustment and therefore inattentive people are rarely efficient or
successful.
4. Attention helps us to remember experiences more accurately and fully.
Those things to which we attend carefully are recalled with vividness and
in detail.
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Laws/Factors of Attention:

Objective Determinants

i. Change
ii. Intensity
iii. Size
iv. Repetition
v. Novelty & Contrast

Subjective Determinants

i. Importance of the problem

ii. Interest
iii. Native desires & needs
iv. Attitude
v. Education & training
vi. Mood of the moment
vii. Purpose in hand
viii. Goals in life

Kinds of Attention: Attention is commonly distinguished into

voluntary- . In voluntary type of attention, we want to attend and we make an
effort to do so as it is a must. The lecture in the class may be uninteresting and
dull but we have to attend as it bears on our course of study.

involuntary- However, the blaring noise from a loudspeaker, the dazzling light
from a very strong lamp or the very bright colours of dress compels attention.
We are forced to attend to them. While watching an absorbing movie or
reading a very interesting novel, we freely give ourselves away and attend
without realizing it. Such attention is involuntary
habitual. We pay attention in spite of ourselves. Involuntary attention is the
most efficient type and even though teachers have to force children’s attention
in the beginning, the final aim is that children should attend on their own
accord, that is convert voluntary attention into involuntary.
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Habitual- Some people attend to certain kind of stimuli because they have
developed habits of attending to them. For example, a mother habitually
attends to the cries of the baby sleeping next to her.

Measurement of Attention: Attempts have been made to measure the

strength and vividness of attention. Similarly, attempts have been made to
measure the duration of attention, that is, how long a stimulus is capable of
holding attention. A third field in which attempts have been made to measure
attention is the range and span of attention, that is, how many objects can a
person attend to at any one time. The question may be analysed into two
parts- how many things can you perceive at a glance? And, how many activities
can you carry on at the same time?

Perception

Perception is the true beginning of knowledge. Sensations provide the raw

material which perception elaborates into a definite knowledge of the external
world. Sensation tells us that we see a black spot, but it is through perception
that we identify that spot as a crow or a kite. Sensation is the core of
perception and perception is sensation plus meaning. An element of thought,
memory, learning, past experience and motivation enter into perception. A
sensation is simpler than perception, but both give knowledge and information
about the external world.
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Processes involved in Perception: Perception involves the presence of an

object in the environment and its knowledge.
Our receptors are aroused and impulses are conveyed to the brain. Through
the excitation of association areas, past images left by previous experiences
are recalled.

The pink colour for example, arouses the recall of shape, smell, softness and
the like, and the symbol rose comes to mind. This is the symbolic process.

It may also arouse our like and dislike. We may be pleased or displeased with
the object perceived. This is the affective process involving feelings and
emotions.

It may also give us aesthetic experiences, and we may consider the object ugly
or beautiful. Lastly, we perceive the object as a whole and do not see only
parts or aspects as is done in sensation. There is an element of organization or
reorganization in all perception.

The role of Past Experience in Perception: Perception becomes fuller, more

accurate as a result of our increasing experience. We learn to supply more
details to distinguish the nature of objects when only a slight clue is given. For
example, we may perceive a rose by smell alone or recognize a friend by his
gait or voice alone. Objects also become more meaningful through experience.
Experience sets limits to what we can perceive and understand; as our
experiences widen, objects become more meaningful. Long experience also
deadens our appreciation of the things around us through familiarity- For
example, staying in a hill station deadens our appreciation of the greenery ,
something which people from the plains strive to appreciate.

Factors of Perception:

External factors of Perception: All the objective factors of attention given

earlier, are also objective factors of perception.

Inner factors of attention:

i. Types of surrounding
ii. Interests & Values
iii. Mood
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iv. Social norms

v. Social perception.

Outer Organizing factors of Perception

In addition to factors mentioned so far, there are several other factors in the
environment which give meaning and organization to perception. Given below
are a few of them:

Figure & Ground in Perception: Objects are perceived against a background-

man against sky, pictures against wall, mountains against clouds or words
against page. The figure seems to have some sort of shape, form or quality, but
the background is formless and vague. The ground seems to extend
continuously behind a figure. When the figure and ground are merged or when
there is a confusion between figure and ground, then the result is a
camouflage. In any war, tanks are camouflaged and men dress in olive green to
merge with the forest. Nature provides camouflage to animals. This is called
natural camouflage. For example, chameleons change colours according to the
background.

Constancy of size: The size of an image on our retina changes with the change
in the distance of the object from the eye. The further away it is, the smaller is
the image. On the other hand, our experience shows that within limits the
object appears to be about the same size irrespective of its distance. For
example, when you approach your friend from a distance, your perception of
the friend’s size does not change much despite the fact that the retinal image
becomes larger. This tendency for the perceived size of objects to remain
relatively unchanged with changes in their distance from the observer and the
size of the retinal image is called size constancy.

Constancy of form, colour & shape: The things that an individual perceives
tend to remain constant in his mind. For example, A rectangular table remains
rectangular even when seen from a particular angle where the shape is badly
distorted.

White shirts are perceived as white even when they look grey in twilight- this
is known as brightness constancy, that is, our experience of brightness does
not change in spite of the changes in the amount of the reflected light reaching
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our eyes. The tendency to maintain apparent brightness constant under

different amount of illumination is called brightness constancy.

Context & Experience: In a running train, electric poles seem to be running

backwards while distant villages seem to be running with the train. But we are
not fooled. We know that our own movement is being transferred to the
objects around. In a film show, still shots are moved in so quick a succession
that they seem to be continued. Such perception based experiences are
interpreted in their context in the light of our experience.

Gestalt laws of Grouping in Perception

Gestalt is a German word that translates to "whole". Psychologists who believe
in the Gestalt Theory believe that the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts. To better interpret a stimuli or a scene, we attempt to organize the
information into certain groups. This principle of grouping includes four types:

Similarity: the tendency to group similar objects together in our perceptions

Proximity: the tendency to group objects together when they are near each
other

Continuity: the preference towards perceptions of connected and continuous

figures as opposed to disconnected and disjointed ones

Closure: the tendency of our mind to perceive incomplete shapes as whole

figures

Principle of Symmetry: This principle suggests that symmetrical areas tend to

be seen as figures against asymmetrical backgrounds
The Principle of Surroundings: According to this principle, the areas that can be
seen as surrounded by others tend to be perceived as figures.

For example, the image given

above looks like five figures against the white background rather than the word
‘LIFT’.
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The examples from above are examples of Proximity, Similarity, Continuity,

Symmetry and closure

These are more examples above: from right to left - closure, symmetry,
continuity, similarity, and proximity.

Law of Simplicity: As per Gestalt’s "Law of Simplicity" or the "Law of

Pragnanz" (the entire figure or configuration), every stimulus is perceived in its
most simple form. Gestalt theorists followed the basic principle that the whole
is greater than the sum of its parts.

Good Figure: The Gestalt psychologists also indicate that our cerebral
processes are always oriented towards the perception of a good figure or
pragnanz. That is the reason why we perceive everything in an organized form.
The most primitive organization takes place in the form of figure-ground
segregation. When we look at a surface, certain aspects of the surface clearly
stand out as separate entities, whereas others do not. For example, when we
see words on a page or a painting on a wall, the words and the painting stand
out from the background and are perceived as figures, while the page and the
wall stay behind the figure and are perceived as background. We distinguish
figure from the ground on the basis of the following characteristics:
i. Figure has a definite form while the background is formless
ii. Figure has a clear contour (outline) while the background is contour-
less
iii. Figure is more organized as compared to its background
iv. Figure stands out from the background while the background stays
behind the figure.
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v. Figure appears more clear, limited and relatively nearer while the
background appears relatively unclear, unlimited and away from us.

Perception of Space, Depth & Distance:

The visual field or surface in which things exist, move or can be placed is called
space. The space in which we live is organized in three dimensions. We
perceive not only the spatial attributes (e.g., size, shape, direction) of various
objects, but also the distance between the objects found in this space. While
the images of objects projected on to our retina are flat and two dimensional
(left, right, up, down), we still perceive three dimensions in the space. Why
does it happen so? It occurs due to our ability to transfer a two dimensional
retinal vision into a three dimensional perception. The process of viewing the
world in three dimensions is called distance or depth perception.
Depth perception is important in our daily life. For example, when we drive, we
sue depth to assess the distance of an approaching automobile. In perceiving
depth, we depend on two main sources of information, called cues. One is
called binocular cues because they require both eyes. Another is called
monocular cues, because they allow us to perceive depth with just one eye. A
number of such cues are used to change a two dimensional image into a three
dimensional perception.
Monocular Cues (Psychological cues): Monocular cues of depth perception are
effective when the objects are viewed with only one eye. These cues are often
used by artists to induce depth in two dimensional paintings. Hence, they are
also known as pictorial cues. Some important monocular cues that help us in
judging the distance and depth in two dimensional surfaces are described
below:
Relative size: The size of retinal image allows us to judge distance based on our
past and present experiences with similar objects. As the objects get away, the
retinal image becomes smaller and smaller. We tend to perceive an object
farther away when it appears small, and closer when it appears bigger
.
Interposition or overlapping: These cues occur when some portion of the
object is covered by another object. The overlapped object is considered
farther away, whereas the object that covers it appears nearer.

Linear Perspective: This reflects a phenomenon by which distant objects

appear to be closer together than the nearer objects. For example, parallel
lines, such as rail tracks ,appear to converge with increasing distance with a
vanishing point at the horizon. The more the lines converge, the farther away
they appear.
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Aerial perspective: The air contains microscopic particles of dust and moisture
that make distant objects look hazy or blurry. This effect is called aerial
perspective. For example, distant mountains appear blue due to the scattering
of blue light in the atmosphere, whereas the same mountains are perceived to
be closer when the atmosphere is clearer.
Light and shade: In the light some parts of the object get highlighted, whereas
some parts become darker. Highlights and shadows provide us with
information about an object’s distance.
Relative height: Larger objects are perceived as being closer to the viewer and
smaller objects as being farther away. When we expect two objects to be the
same size and they are not, the larger of the two will appear closer and the
smaller will appear farther away.
Texture Gradient: It represents a phenomenon by which the visual field having
more density of elements is seen farther away. You will notice, a brick wall
seems to have more density of bricks as we look at the far end of the wall from
a distance.
Motion parallax: It is a kinetic monocular cue, and hence not considered as a
pictorial cue. It occurs when objects at different distances move at a different
relative speed. The distant objects appear to move slowly than the objects that
are close. The rate of an object’s movement provides a clue to its distance. For
example when we travel in a bus, closer objects move ‘against’ the direction of
the bus whereas the farther objects move ‘with’ the direction of the bus.
Binocular Cues (Physiological Cues)
Some important cues to depth perception in three dimensional spaces are
provided by both eyes. Three of them are mentioned below:
Retinal or Binocular disparity: Retinal disparity occurs because the two eyes
have different locations in our head. They are separated from each other
horizontally by a distance of about 6.5 centimetres. Because of this distance,
the image formed on the retina of each eye of the same object is slightly
different. This difference between the two images is called retinal disparity.
The brain interprets a large retinal disparity to mean a close object and a small
retinal disparity to mean a distant object, as the disparity is less for distant
objects and more for the near objects.
Convergence: When we see a nearby object, our eyes converge inwards in
order to bring the image on the fovea of each eye. A group of muscles send
messages to the brain regarding the degree to which eyes are turning inwards,
and these messages are interpreted as cues to the perception of depth. The
degree of convergence decreases as the object moves further away from the
observer. You can experience convergence by holding a finger in front of your
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nose and slowly bringing it closer. The more your eyes turn inward or
converge, the nearer the object appears in space.
Accommodation: Accommodation refers to a process by which we focus the
image on the retina with the help of ciliary muscle. These muscles change the
thickness of the lens of the eye. If the object gets away (more than 2 meters),
the muscle is relaxed. As the object moves nearer, the muscle contracts, and
the thickness of the lens increases. The signal about the degree of contraction
of the muscle is sent to the brain, which provides the cue for distance.

How is colour perceived: Biological & Psychological factors

There are some external factors that can account for differences of perception
of colour. Basically it is the most visible electromagnetic waves which can be
seen by humans. Sunlight for example, emits electromagnetic waves and
humans can only see the wavelengths or Spectra. Objects can be seen because
of several factors, namely: light sources, conducting media, objects/subjects,
and sensor/detector. The fourth factor is absolutely intertwined to generate
the image of an object can be seen by the human eye

Change one’s perception of colour can be caused by factors of the disease i.e.,
deuteranopia. Deuteranopia is a cond ition where one cannot distinguish
certain colours of some kind.

In severe cases, the person cannot even distinguish colours at all, which is a
condition that is rarer, and commonly called achromatopsia. Deuteranopia, or
also commonly referred to as colour blind (partial), usually not too severe but
rarely strikes a lot of people in a variety of levels. Instead of seeing a certain
colour, usually a person with this disorder sees only opaque colour. The other
internal factors that can cause a difference in the perception of colour is a
factor of gender, where men are more susceptible to colour blindness.
According to eye experts and children’s health at Mount Sinai Hospital, New
York City, Dr. Miesha Frempong, colour blindness is most commonly caused
due to genetic factors.

Just as our physical strength decreases with increasing age, our eyes also
shows age related decline in performance – especially as we reach our 40s 60
and so on
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Other internal factor that affects the perception of colour is nutrition.

Nutritional adequacy of a person affects the ability of one’s vision.

Psychological factors in colour

The most important aspect of colour in daily life is probably the one that is
least defined and most variable. It involves aesthetic and psychological
responses to colour and influences art, fashion, commerce, and even physical
and emotional sensations. One example of the link between colour and
emotion is the common perception that red, orange, yellow, and brown hues
are “warm,” while the blues, greens, and greys are “cold.”

The red, orange, and yellow hues are said to induce excitement, cheerfulness,
stimulation, and aggression; the blues and greens security, calm, and peace;
and the browns, greys, and blacks sadness, depression, and melancholy.

It must be remembered, however, that the psychological perception of colour

is subjective, and only general comments about its features and uses can be
made.
Like colour terminology, colour harmony, colour preferences, colour
symbolism, and other psychological aspects of colour are culturally
conditioned, and they vary considerably with both place and historical period.

One cross-cultural study showed that American and Japanese concepts of

warm and cold colours are essentially the same, but that in Japan blue and
green hues are perceived to be “good” and the red-purple range “bad,” while
in the United States the red-yellow-green range is considered “good” and
oranges and red-purples “bad.” The colour of mourning is black in the West,
yet other cultures use white, purple, or gold for this purpose.

Many languages contain expressions that use colour metaphorically (common

examples in English include “green with envy,” “feeling blue,” “seeing red,”
“purple passion,” “white lie,” and “black rage”) and therefore cannot always be
translated literally into other languages because the colour may lose its
associated symbolic meaning.
Colour symbolism serves important roles in art, religion, politics, and
ceremonials, as well as in everyday life. Its strong emotional connotations can
affect colour perception so that, for example, an apple- or heart-shaped figure
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cut from orange paper may seem to have a redder hue than a geometric figure
cut from the same paper because of the specific psychological meaning that is
associated with the shape.
In addition to emotional associations, factors that affect colour perception
include the observer’s age, mood, and mental health. People who share
distinct personal traits often share colour perceptions and preferences. For
example, schizophrenics have been reported to have abnormal colour
perception, and very young children learning to distinguish colours usually
show a preference for red or orange. Many psychologists believe that
analysing an individual’s uses of anresponses to colour can reveal information
about the individual’s physiological and psychological condition. It has even
been suggested that specific colours can have a therapeutic effect on physical
and mental disabilities.

The intensity of illumination also affects colour perception. At very low light
levels, blue and green objects appear brighter than red ones compared with
their relative brightness in stronger illumination, an effect known as the
Purkinje shift for its discoverer, the Czech physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkinje.
If a bright spot of white light is projected onto a screen uniformly illuminated
with a pale blue light, an effect known as simultaneous colour contrast makes
the white light appear pale yellow and the blue light seem greyer than if the
two were viewed separately.

The complementary hue is induced by the adjacent illumination. Successive

colour contrast, which occurs when a person stares at one colour and then
shifts to another, produces the same effect. A person who stares at a pattern
of colours for some time and then looks at a white area sees a negative
afterimage of the pattern in complementary hues. This effect, also called
chromatic adaptation, is what causes browns to appear reddish to someone
who has just viewed a green lawn.

Colour vision

One of the most successful theories of colour vision, the trichromatic theory,
was first proposed around 1801 by Thomas Young, an English physician, and
refined about 50 years later by the German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz.
Based on experiments in colour matching, this theory postulates three types of
colour receptors in the eye. The actual existence of such receptor cells, known
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as cones (from their shape), was finally confirmed in the early 1960s. The three
types of cones have maximum sensitivities in the blue, green, and red regions
of the spectrum.

One of the trichromatic theory’s strengths is that the existence of several kinds
of colour blindness can be simply explained as the lack of function of one or
more sets of the cones. If one set of cones does not function, dichromatism
results. People with deuteranopia perceive only blue and yellow. In the much
rarer tritanopia only green and red are perceived. Persons who have no
functioning cone system suffer from the extremely rare monochromatism and
can perceive only greys.

The opponent process theory describes the processing of sensory information

related to colour at levels above the retina. The theory suggest that we possess
six different types of neurons, each of which is either stimulated or inhibited by
red, green, blue, yellow, black or white. First proposed by the German
physiologist Ewald Hering in 1878, the opponent process theory of colour
vision suggests that our ability to perceive colour is controlled by three
receptor complexes with opposing actions. These three receptors complexes
are the red-green complex, the blue-yellow complex, and the black-white
complex.

According to the opponent process theory, these cells can only detect the
presence of one colour at a time because the two colours oppose one another.
You do not see greenish-red because the opponent cells can only detect one of
these colours at a time. This theory can explain the occurrence of negative after
images, that is, sensations of complimentary colours that occur after one stares
at a stimulus of a given colour. Example, after you stare at a red object, if you
shift your gaze to a neutral background, sensations of green may follow.

Colour Mixtures- There is an interesting relationship among colours. They

form complementary pairs. When mixed in correct proportions the
complementary colours yield an achromatic grey or white.. Examples of
complementary colours are red-green and yellow-blue. Red, green and blue are
called primary colours because on mixing, the light of these three colours can
produce almost any colour. The most common example is the television screen.
It contains spots of blue, red and green colours. The combinations of these three
produce different colours and shades that we see on TV.
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Attributes of colour

In our interaction with the environment, we not only experience a variety of

objects but their colours. Colour is a psychological property of our sensory
experience. It is created when our brain interprets the information received from
the external world.

Dimensions of colour: A person with normal colour vision can distinguish more
than seven million different shades of colour. Our experiences of colour can be
described in terms of three basic dimensions called hue, saturation and
brightness.

Hue is a property of chromatic colours. In simple words, it refers to the name of

the colour, e.g., red, blue and green. Hue varies with wavelength, and each
colour is identified with a specific wavelength. For example, blue has a
wavelength of about 465nm and green of about 500nm (a billionth of a metre,
or nanometre). Achromatic colours (without colour) like black, white or grey
are not characterized by hues.

Saturation is a psychological attribute that refers to the relative amount of hue

of a surface or object. The light of single wavelength (monochromatic, i.e.,
containing only one colour. In physics, monochromatic describes light that has
the same wavelength, so it is one colour) appears to be highly saturated. As we
mix different wavelengths, the saturation decreases. The colour grey is
completely unsaturated.

Brightness is the perceived intensity of light. It varies across both chromatic

and achromatic colours. White and black represent the top and bottom of the
brightness dimension. White has the highest degree of brightness, whereas black
has the lowest degree.

Adaptation & After-images:

Adaptation: The human eye can function at a very large range of light
intensities. Sometimes we have to undergo a rapid change in illumination levels.
For example, when we go to a matinee show movie, we find it difficult to see
things in the hall on entering it. However after spending about 15 to 20 minutes
there, we are able to see everything. The process of getting adjusted to different
intensities of light is called ‘visual adaptation’. Light adaptation refers to the
process of adjusting to bright light after exposure to dim light. This process
takes nearly a minute or two. On the other hand, dark adaptation refers to the
process of adjusting to a dimly illuminated environment after exposure to bright
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light. This may take half an hour or even longer depending on the previous level
of exposure of the eye to light.

According to the classical view, light and dark adaptations occur due to certain
photochemical processes. The rods have a photo-sensitive chemical substance
called rhodopsin or visual purple. By the action of light the molecules of this
chemical substance get bleached or broken down. Under such conditions the
light adaptation takes place in the eyes. On the other hand, the dark adaptation is
achieved by the removal of light, and thereby allowing for restorative processes
to regenerate the pigment in the rods with the help of vitamin A.

The regeneration of rhodopsin in rods is a time consuming process. That is why

dark adaptation is a slower process than light adaptation. It has been found that
people who suffer from Vitamin A deficiency do not achieve dark adaptation at
all, and find it really difficult to move in the dark. This condition is generally
known as night blindness. A parallel chemical to be found in cones is known as
iodopsin.

After-images: This is quite an interesting phenomenon related to visual

sensations. The effect of a visual stimulus persists for some time even after the
removal of that stimulus from the visual field. This effect is known as after-
image. After-images are positive and negative. Positive after-images resemble
the original stimulus in terms of hue, saturation and brightness. They usually
occur after a brief intense stimulation of dark adapted eyes. On the other hand,
negative after-images appear in complementary colours. These images appear
when a person stares at a patch of a particular colour for at least 30 seconds, and
then transfers the gaze to a neutral background (e.g., a white or grey surface). If
the person looks at the blue colour, the negative after-image will appear in
yellow. Similarly, a red stimulus will yield a negative after-image of green
colour.

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Errors in Perception

There are many factors involved in Perceptual errors:

1. Emotional Excitement: A frenzied mob does not see things correctly. It is

difficult to find the truth in the outburst of emotional rioting.
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2. Suggestion: Numerous experiments have shown that people have

testified to an electric shock when asked to handle a wire even though
the main switch was off.
3. Illusions: Illusions are perceptions in which objects are misinterpreted.
They fail to see the character of objects interpreted. They are
experienced by everybody. For example, it is normal to mistake a string
for a snake in the dark.
Illusions-Kinds of Illusions
Illusions are classified into three groups according to their cause:
a. Those that are due to the nature of the stimulus.
b. Those that are due to subjective conditions
c. Those that are due to the nature of sensory organs.

a. Illusions due to the nature of the stimulus.

1. Muller Lyer Illusion-

Both the lines are of the same length but the top line appears longer as the eye tends to travel along
the direction of the arrow.

2. Height-Width Illusion

Though the lines are of the same length, the vertical line appears longer because the eye takes a
longer time to travel vertically.
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3. Ponzo Illusion

The two lines in the middle of the converging lines are equal. But the top line seems to be longer
because of the two converging lines at the side.

4. Zoellner Illusion

The lines are parallel but appear to be distorted because of the small broken lines that seem to pull
the parallel lines apart.

5. The Poggendorff illusion is an optical illusion that involves the brain's perception of the
interaction between diagonal lines and horizontal and vertical edges. The Poggendorff
illusion is named for Johann Poggendorff (1796-1877), a German physicist who first
described it in 1860.
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The Poggendorff illusion is an image where thin diagonal lines are positioned at an angle behind
wider stripes. When observing these thin lines, they appear to be misaligned; in the example above,
the blue line on the right appears to line up with the black line on the left. In actuality, the black and
red lines match up.

6. Necker’s Cube Illusion: This cube was derived by N.A.Necker (1832). The tinted portion of
the cube can pass off as the rear or the front of the cube.

Illusions due to Subjective conditions

At any time our mind is so full of the thoughts of a particular object that any object slightly
resembling that object is mistaken for it. In a big crowd, if a child is lost then any child resembling
that lost child is mistaken for him. One of the oldest examples of this kind is Aristotle’s illusions.
Cross 2 fingers-fore finger and middle finger, and touch a pencil with the crossed part of both
fingers. It would seem that you are touching two pencils.

Illusions due to sensory defects

A person suffering from jaundice sees everything yellow, and a colour blind person is unable to
perceive objects of red and green colours as he can only see black, white and grey.

What is ESP connection

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ESP — short for extrasensory perception — refers to the ability to receive information directly with
the mind rather than through the five senses of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. ... People
called parapsychologists study paranormal psychic phenomena, such as ESP

Coined by renowned psychologist J.B. Rhine, the term was used to refer to psychic abilities and
temporal operations. ESP is commonly called sixth sense, a fairly popularized topic in media and
related industries. The four types of extrasensory perception include clairvoyance, psychokinesis,
telepathy and precognition.

Clairvoyance (from French “Clair” meaning "clear" and “voyance” meaning "vision") is the alleged
ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory
perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said accordingly to be a clairvoyant
("one who sees clearly").

Pertaining to the ability of clear-sightedness, clairvoyance refers to the paranormal ability to see
persons and events that are distant in time or space. It can be divided into roughly three classes: 1.
1. Precognition- the ability to perceive or predict future events,

2. Retrocognition- the ability to see past events

3. Remote viewing,-the perception of contemporary events happening outside of the range of

normal perception

Psychokinesis: Psychokinesis or telekinesis is an alleged psychic ability allowing a person to influence

a physical system without physical interaction. It is the action of mind on matter, in which objects
are supposedly caused to move or change as a result of mental concentration upon them. Claimed
effects of psychokinesis include levitation and metal bending; such displays are common, though
fraudulent, in theatrical magic.

Despite experimental investigation, scientific evidence supporting the existence of psychokinesis is

lacking

Telepathy: Telepathy is the direct transference of thought from one person (sender or agent) to
another (receiver) without using the usual sensory channels of communication, hence a form of
extrasensory perception (ESP).

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