Perception, Perceptual

Process, Principles of
Perception
What is Perception?
• A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory
impression in order to give meaning to their environment
Example 1: disagreement among individuals in organizations in relation
to pay and allowances, policies, procedures and place of work itself. An
individual who displays a positive attitude may perceive about factors
as good and right condition to work environment, while other may
consider them insufficient.
Perceptual Process
• Perception is a process of receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting,
checking and reacting to stimuli. This is like an input-through put-
output process in which the stimuli can be considered as 'inputs'
transformation of 'input' through selection, organization and
interpretation as 'through puts' and the ultimate behaviour/action as
'output‘
1. Receiving Stimuli : The first process in the perception is the presence
of stimuli. The stimuli are received from the various sources. Through the
five organs. It is a physiological aspect of perception process. Stimuli may
be external to us (such as sound waves) and inside us (such as energy
generation by muscles).
Cont.
2. Selection of Stimuli : After receiving the stimuli or data, some are
selected. Others are screened out. Two types of factors affect selection
of stimuli for processing : external and internal factors.
• External factors relate to stimuli such as intensity of stimuli, its size,
movement, repetition, etc.
• Internal factors, relate to the perceiver such as his/her age, learning,
interest, etc.
• Normally, he will select the objects which interest him and will avoid
that for which he is indifferent. This is also called 'selective
perception'.
Cont..
3. Organization of Stimuli : Organising the bits of information into a
meaningful whole is called "organization". There are three ways by
which the selected data, i.e., inputs are organised. These are :
(i) Grouping
(ii) Closure and
(iii) Simplification.
Cont..
(i) Grouping : In grouping, the perceiver groups the various stimuli on the
basis of their similarity or proximity. For example, all the workers
coming from the same place may be perceived as similar on the basis
of proximity.
(ii) Closure : When faced with incomplete information, people fill up the
gaps themselves to make the information meaningful. This may be
done on the basis of past experience, past data, or hunches.
For example, in many advertisement, alphabets are written by putting
electric bulbs indicating the shape of the concerned alphabets but broken
lines. In such cases, people tend to fill up the gap among different bulbs to
get meaning out of these.
Cont..
(iii) Simplification : People identify main stimulus features and assesses
how they are organized. He interprets a stimulus situation, the
perceiver simples the information.
Principles of Perception
1. According to figure ground relationship a figure is perceived in
relation to its background.
• The perception of the object or figure in terms of colour, size, shape
and intensity etc. depends upon the figure ground relationship.
• We perceive a figure against a background or background against a
figure depending upon the characteristics of the perceiver as well as
the relative strength of the figure or ground.
Cont..
2. According to principle of closure, while confronting an incomplete
pattern one tends to complete or close the pattern to fill in sensory
gaps and perceive it as a meaningful whole.
• This type of organization is helpful in interpreting various incomplete
objects, patterns or stimuli present in our environment.
Principles of Grouping
• It refers to a tendency to perceive stimuli in some meaningful patterns
by grouping them on some solid basis like similarity, proximity,
continuity etc.
Principles of Simplicity
• We perceive the simplest possible pattern because they enable the
perceiver to perceive the whole from some of its part.
Principle of contour
• The contour is said to be boundary between the figure and its
background.
• The degree of this contour separating the figure from its ground is
responsible for enabling us to recognize stimuli or objects into
meaningful pattern.
Principle of context
• Perceptual organization is also governed by the principle of context.
• E.g. an examiner may award higher marks to the same answer sheet
in a pleasant context than in an unpleasant context.
Principle of Contrast
• Perceptual organization is very much affected through contrast effects
as the stimuli that are in sharp contrast to nearby stimuli may draw
our maximum attention and carry different perceptual affects.
Principle of adaptability
• The perceptual organization for the same stimuli depends upon the
adaptability of the perceiver to perceive similar stimuli.
• An individual who adapts himself to work before an intense bright
light will perceive normal sunlight as quite dim.