- October 10, 2018
- Psychological terms
- Sergey Kostyuchenko Zhelyazkov
Perceptivity is a reflection of reality situations, in which much depends on the individual. Such a display is necessary to form an image of objects. As for psychology, this phenomenon allows us to understand how a person sees a problem and what conclusions he draws as a result of communicating with people around him.
Basic Concepts
Perceptivity is a basic biological process of the human psyche. This function is acquired through the senses, which take part in the formation of a complete image of objects. Perception influences the analyzers through a series of sensations caused by perception.
It is also worth saying that perceptivity is a popular subject of study among psychologists. After all, such a reflection of reality allows us to form a full-fledged image of a certain phenomenon in the human mind.
General characteristics and physiological basis of perception
Perception is a complex system of processes for obtaining and transforming information that provides the body with an image of objective reality and orientation in the surrounding world. It is the starting point of the cognitive process, together with sensation, which provides it with the original sensory material. The physiological basis of perception are processes in the sensory organs, nerve fibers and the central nervous system. Thus, under the influence of stimuli, nerve excitations occur in the nerve endings present in the sense organs, which are transmitted along pathways to the nerve centers and, finally, to the cerebral cortex. Here he goes to the projection (sensory) areas of the cerebral cortex, which are like the central projection of the nerve endings present in the sense organs.
It should be noted that the mechanism described above is a mechanism for the formation of sensations. Indeed, sensations are formed at the level of the proposed scheme. Consequently, sensations can be considered as a structural element of the process of perception. Own physiological mechanisms of perception are involved in the process of forming a holistic image at further stages, when excitation from the projection zones is transferred to the integrative zones of the cerebral cortex, where the formation of images of real world phenomena is completed. Therefore, the integration zones of the cerebral cortex, which complete the process of perception, can be called perception zones. Their functions differ significantly from the functions of projection zones. This difference becomes obvious when one or another zone is violated. When the function of the visual projection zone is impaired, so-called central blindness occurs, i.e. when the periphery - the sense organs - is completely devoid of visual sensations, a person sees nothing.
When the integrative zone is damaged or disrupted, a person sees some points of light, some contours, but he does not recognize what he sees. He no longer understands what affects him and does not even recognize familiar objects. When auditory integration areas are disrupted, people no longer understand human speech. Such disorders are called agnosias (disorders resulting in the impossibility of cognition) or agnosias. The physiological basis of cognition is further complicated by the fact that it is closely related to motor function, emotional experience, and various thought processes. Consequently, nervous excitations caused by external stimuli, starting in the sense organs, are transmitted to the recognition neurons of the corresponding centers of the brain, where they cover various areas of the cortex and language centers and interact with other nervous excitations. Compared to sensations, perception is the highest form of analytical-synthetic activity of the brain. Meaningful perception without analysis is impossible.
Varieties of perception
Psychologists classify perception depending on the sensory organ involved as follows:
- Visual perceptivity is a type of perception in which the eyes make saccadic movements - this is how people process the information they have received. When eye movement stops, visual perception begins. This type of perception is influenced by previously developed stereotypes. For example, when a person is used to skimming a text, it will be difficult for him to fully process the material being studied. He may not notice large paragraphs, and if asked, he will say that they were not in the book.
- Auditory perceptivity in psychology is a method of perception in which the melodic and phonemic system plays an important role. In this case, motor components are involved (they are separated into a separate full-fledged system - for example, singing a melody allows you to develop an ear for music).
There are also the following types of perception, in which information is reflected through understanding rather than through the senses. This is the perception of direction and distance of objects that are located at a distance, and the perception of time, that is, the sequence and speed of events.
The essence of the perception of time is that all people have different internal clocks. Often they do not coincide with circadian rhythms. To perceive such rhythms, a person uses additional analyzers.
The concept of sensory-perceptual process
Definition 1
Sensory-perceptual processes are those processes that, through the human senses, provide a connection between the internal and external world.
A person’s life is a continuous series of actions that accompany him from the moment of birth to the end of his life. Among them there are those that are called perceptual.
Definition 2
Perception is a person’s perception or ability to reflect surrounding objects and situations.
Perception allows us to cognize the surrounding reality and contributes to the formation of an individual understanding of it. Each person perceives the surrounding reality in his own way. Nevertheless, despite different perceptions, people in their development go through certain stages, accompanied by specific ones, i.e. perceptual actions. They are components of the structure of the process of perception and activity.
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Perception and action are inextricably linked. The formation and development of perceptual actions is carried out during the learning process and is divided into three stages:
- the first stage is associated with childhood, when the child begins to perform actions with unfamiliar objects, an adequate image of the object is formed and subsequently becomes a sensory standard;
- the second stage is associated with the restructuring of sensory processes and, under the influence of practical activities, they become perceptual actions, familiarization with the spatial properties of objects occurs;
- the third stage is characterized by a reduction and curtailment of external actions, which become hidden, occurring at the level of consciousness and subconscious.
By this time, the child has already formed a system of sensory standards, for example, a system of geometric figures. Thanks to standards, sensory-perceptual actions change and their process of image construction turns into a process of identification.
Social perception
The development and emergence of human interaction is possible subject to mutual understanding. It is important that people understand not only those around them, but also their own personality. This is possible due to the processes of communication and relationships formed between people during the conversation. It is also important to consider the methods used to implement collaborative activities.
A mandatory component of communication is the process of cognition. This component is the perceptual aspect of communication. Scientists consider social perception to be an important and serious phenomenon in psychology. For the first time such a definition was introduced by D. Bruner (he formed a different view on human perception of various subjects).
Law of Perception
Perception is a sensory representation of an object or phenomenon. Communication as perception is the mechanism for its beginning, since any communication process begins with the perception of people by each other. And the process of perception, according to the laws of social perception, is built in the form of a judgment about an object. The famous psychologist N.N. Lange developed a special law of perception, according to which perception is a rapid change from a certain generalized perception of an object to a more specific one.
Mechanisms of perception
Social perceptivity is the determination of the feelings of the interlocutor. The mechanism is simple: a person interacts with the interlocutor as a person (this is how his interlocutors perceive him).
Communication is an important mechanism. Its essence is that the interlocutors are trying to understand each other. Communication is mediated not only by the presence of a system for understanding information, but also by the characteristics of the interlocutor’s perception.
Communication implies the presence of interpersonal perception, that is, the development of first impressions about the interlocutor. Therefore, psychologists identify several mechanisms of perception, which are specific methods that involve assessing and analyzing the behavior of the interlocutor. The most common mechanisms are identification, causal attribution and social reflection.
As for casual attribution, its essence is in analyzing the reaction to the behavior of the interlocutor, that is, a person makes assumptions about why his interlocutor behaves this way and not otherwise. In this case, a person is based on the similarity of the interlocutor’s behavior with people with whom he communicated before, or uses his own experience.
Causal attribution uses the principle of analogy. It depends on how the person assessing the interlocutor’s behavior perceives himself. The essence of identification is that a person tries to understand the interlocutor, making an assumption about what his state of mind is, trying to put himself in the place of the one with whom he is communicating.
Identification allows you to understand the interlocutor’s values, behavior and habits. It has a special meaning in adolescence and youth, because during this period the relationship between the teenager (youth) and society is created.
Social reflection refers to the process and result of a person’s self-perception. The main tool of social reflection is a person’s understanding of his personal characteristics. He tries to understand how they are expressed in reaction to the behavior of the interlocutor, and how others perceive them.
The essence of empathy is that a person empathizes with the interlocutor and tries to understand his internal state. Empathy is based on understanding the experiences of the interlocutor, as well as understanding how he evaluates what is happening. Empathy is an important professional trait of a teacher or psychologist.
The concept of perception. Perceptual actions.
Perception (perceptual process) is a cognitive mental process that provides a holistic reflection of objects, situations and events that arises from the direct impact of physical stimuli on the senses.
The physiological basis of perception is the complex activity of analyzers.
Perception is based on sensations, but perception cannot be reduced to a simple sum of sensations. When perceiving, we not only identify a group of sensations and combine them into a single image, but also comprehend this image, drawing on past experience, i.e. perception is inextricably linked with memory and thinking. Thus, perception is involved in the reception of information and, together with sensations, provides sensory orientation in the surrounding world.
The process of perception occurs in close connection with other mental processes: thinking (we realize what is in front of us), speech (we designate an object with a word), memory, attention, will (we organize the process of perception), is guided by motivation, has an affective-emotional coloring (how - this is how we relate to what we perceive).
Perception is a more complex process than sensations. Perception is not a passive copying of an instantaneous impact, but a living, creative process of cognition, a complex activity, an important part of which is movement. If the eye is motionless, it stops seeing the object; to pronounce sounds, tension in the muscles of the larynx is necessary; to know the properties of the object, it must be examined - using hand movements.
There are 4 levels of perceptual action:
1) detection (is there a stimulus?);
2) discrimination (formation of a perceptual image of the standard) - these two actions are perceptual;
3) identification – identification of a perceived object with an image stored in memory;
4) recognition – assigning an object to a certain class of objects previously perceived; the last two actions are related to identification.
Thus, perception is a system of perceptual actions, the mastery of which requires special training and practice.
Perceptual actions are the basic structural units of the human perception process. They are associated with the conscious identification of one or another aspect of a sensory given situation, as well as various kinds of transformations of sensory information, leading to the creation of an image adequate to the tasks of the activity and the objective world.
Perceptual actions that serve to construct the same perceptual image can be realized using different sets of perceptual operations.
General properties of perception: objectivity, integrity, structure, constancy, meaningfulness, apperception.
Properties of perception. The most important properties of perception are objectivity, integrity, structure, constancy and meaningfulness.
The objectivity of perception is expressed in the so-called act of objectification, i.e. in relating information received from the outside world to this world. Without such reference, perception cannot perform its orienting and regulatory function in human practical activity. Objectivity of perception is not an innate quality; There is a certain system of actions that provides the subject with the discovery of the objectivity of the world.
Another feature of perception is its integrity. Unlike sensation, which reflects the individual properties of an object affecting the sense organ, perception is a holistic image of an object. Of course, this holistic image is formed on the basis of a generalization of knowledge about the individual properties and qualities of an object, obtained in the form of various sensations.
The integrity of perception is associated with its structure. Perception to a large extent does not correspond to our instantaneous sensations and is not a simple sum of them. We actually perceive a generalized structure abstracted from these sensations, which is formed over some time.
Constancy of perception. The property of constancy is explained by the fact that perception is a kind of self-regulating action that has a feedback mechanism and adapts to the characteristics of the perceived object and the conditions of its existence. The constancy of perception formed in the process of objective activity is a necessary condition for human life and activity. Thanks to the property of constancy, which consists in the ability of the perceptual system (the perceptual system is a set of analyzers that provide a given act of perception) to compensate for these changes, we perceive surrounding objects as relatively constant in shape, size, color, etc.
Meaningfulness of perception. Although perception arises as a result of the direct impact of a stimulus on receptors, perceptual images always have a certain semantic meaning. Human perception is closely connected with thinking, with understanding the essence of an object. To consciously perceive an object means to mentally name it, i.e. attribute the perceived object to a certain group, class of objects, and summarize it in words.
The dependence of perception on the content of a person’s mental life, his past experience, and the characteristics of his personality is called apperception. When we perceive an object, traces of past perceptions are also activated.
Making a first impression
Psychologists identify the following factors that determine what impression is formed about a person:
- Superiority is usually observed when a person who is superior to his interlocutor is also highly rated on other characteristics. The result is a revision of the person being assessed. This factor primarily depends on the insecure behavior of the observer. So in extreme situations, many people trust those whom they would not have dared to approach before.
- Attractiveness explains the properties of perception for an interlocutor whose external characteristics are attractive. The main error of perception in this case is that people often overestimate the psychological properties of a person who looks attractive.
- The “attitude” factor implies that a person perceives the interlocutor depending on how he treats him. The main mistake here is the tendency to overestimate the interlocutor who agrees with an opinion or is friendly.
Physiological mechanisms of perception
The physiological mechanism of perception is the complex analytical and synthetic activity of analyzers. Since the relationships between the parts and properties of an object are established in the process of perception, one of the physiological mechanisms of perception is the formation of conditioned reflexes to the relationships. When the analyzer is constantly influenced by a system of stimuli operating in a certain sequence, the reaction begins to depend not on one stimulus, but on the specifics of the relationships of the stimuli, their correlations. I.P. Pavlov discovered the reflexive foundations of perception. He showed that perception is based on conditioned reflexes, that is, on temporary nerve connections formed in the cerebral cortex of the cerebral hemispheres under the influence of receptors of objects or phenomena of the surrounding world. The latter act as complex stimuli, since complex processes of analysis and synthesis occur in the nuclei of the cortical sections of the analyzers during the processing of the excitation caused by them. From a practical point of view, the main function of perception is object recognition, i.e. their assignment to one category or another: this is a car, this is a dog, these are berries, etc. Same with recognition. So what is recognition and what are its mechanisms? Having recognized objects, we can draw conclusions about many hidden properties of the object. If it is a car, then it is made of iron and can be driven. If it is a dog, it can perform security functions. So if it does something wrong, etc., it can haunt people. Therefore, recognition is what allows us to go beyond the sensory representation of the properties of objects.
Today it is customary to distinguish several stages in the process of object recognition, some of which are preliminary, others are final. In the preliminary stages, the perceptual system uses information from the retina and describes an object in terms of elementary components such as lines, edges, and corners. At the final stages, the system compares this description with the description of the shapes of various types of objects stored in visual memory, and selects the most suitable one for it. During the recognition process, most of the information is inaccessible to consciousness at both the preliminary and final stages of recognition. The result of perception is a sensation (for example, a feeling of brightness, volume, salinity, pitch, balance, etc.), while the result of perception is an image, which includes a complex of various interrelated sensations attributed by human consciousness to an object, phenomenon or process.
In order for an object to be perceived, it is necessary to carry out response activities in relation to this object, aimed at its study, construction and refinement of the image. One of the most important physiological mechanisms of perception is the formation of a dynamic stereotype, as well as the establishment of conditioned reflexive connections between analyzers. The image formed as a result of the perception process involves interaction and coordinated work of several analyzers at once. Depending on which of them works more actively, processes more information, receives the most important signs indicating the properties of the perceived object, there are different types of perception. Human perception is always associated with the activity of the second signal system (speech). A person does not simply look at objects and react passively to them. By identifying and combining the most significant of them, he always designates the perceived objects with a word and thus gains a deeper knowledge of their properties. With the help of words, perceived objects acquire meaning.
Development of perceptual skills
According to psychologists, a simple smile is enough for friendly communication and mutual sympathy. To develop perceptual skills, psychologists recommend learning to smile. Facial expressions provide information about a person’s feelings, so if you learn to control them, you can improve your perceptual skills.
Ekman's technique will allow you to learn to distinguish manifestations of emotions and improve perception skills. Its essence is that three zones can be distinguished on the face (forehead and eyes, mouth and chin, and nose). It is in these zones that the manifestation of basic emotions (sadness, joy, fear, and so on) is noted.
A few words about role principles of behavior
Separately, it is worth mentioning the role principles of behavior. Thus, the role principle of perceptivity is that a person’s role should be positively perceived by his interlocutors, and he, in turn, should positively perceive their interests.
The principle of interactivity is that the fulfillment of a certain role by a person in society should simplify the regulation of the behavior of his interlocutors by influencing his goals and motives. Just like the role principle of perceptivity, it implies that the interests of the interlocutor must be taken into account.
