<center><h1>Understanding Perception</h1></center>
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It is a common mistake that we perceive everything that is reported to the brain by the senses. As a matter of fact we perceive but a small portion of the reports of the senses. There are thousands of sights reported by our eyes, sounds reported by our ears, smells reported by our nostrils, and contacts reported by our nerves of touch, each day of our lives, but which are not perceived or seen by the psyche.
We perceive and watch just when the attention, reflex or voluntary, is directed to the report of the senses, and when the brain interprets the report. While perception relies on the reports of the senses for its raw material, it depends entirely upon the application of the brain for its complete manifestation.
The student usually experiences great difficulty in distinguishing between sensation and perception. A sensation is a straightforward report of the senses, which is received in consciousness. Perception is the thought arising from the sentiment the sensation. Perception usually combines several sensations into one thought or percept.
By sensation the mind feels, by perception it realizes that it feels, and recognizes the object causing the sensation. Sensation only brings a report from outside objects, while perception identifies the report with the object which caused it. Perception interprets the reports of sensation.
Sensation reports a flash of light from above, perception interprets the light as starlight, or moonlight, or sunlight, or as the flash of a meteor. Sensation reports a sharp, pricking, painful contact, perception interprets it as the prick of a stick. Sensation reports a red spot on a green background; perception interprets it as a berry on a shrubbery.
Besides, while we may perceive a straightforward single sensation, our perceptions are usually of a gathering of sensations. Perception is usually utilized in gathering sensations and identifying them with the object or objects causing them. In its identification it draws upon whatever memory of past experiences the psyche may have.
Memory, imagination, feeling, and thought are called into play, to some extent, in each clear perception. The infant has but weak perception, but as it gains experience it starts to manifest perceptions and shape percepts. Sensations look like the letters of the alphabet, and perception the shaping of words and sentences from the letters. Thus c, an, and t symbolize sensations, while "cat," shaped from them, symbolizes the perception of the object.
It is held that all learning starts with sensation; that the mental history of the race or individual starts with its first sensation. But, while this is admitted, it must be recalled that sensation basically gives the straightforward, elementary, raw material of thought. The first process of actual thought, or information, starts with perception.
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From our percepts all of our higher concepts and ideas are shaped. Perception relies on association of the sensation with other sensations already experienced; it is based upon experience. The greater the experience, the greater is the possibility of perception, all else being equal.
At the point when perception starts, the psyche dismisses the sensation in itself, for it identifies it as a quality of the thing producing it. The sensation of light is thought of as a quality of the star; the pricking sensation is thought of as a quality of the stick or chestnut pod; the sensation of smell is thought of as a quality of the rose.
On account of the rose, the several sensations of sight, touch, and smell, in their impression of the qualities of color, shape, softness, and fragrance, are assembled together in the percept of the complete object of the blossom. A percept is that which is perceived; the object of the act of perception.
Percept is a mental state comparable with its outside object. A sequence of several sensations which are regarded as the qualities of the outside object, to which are combined the recollections of past experiences, ideas, sentiments, and thoughts. A percept, then, while the simplest type of thought, apparently is a mental state.
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<strong>Stages of Perception</strong>
* The attention frames definite conscious sensations from indefinite apprehensive reports.
* The brain interprets these definite conscious sensations and attributes them to the outside object causing them.
* The related sensations are gathered together, their unity perceived, and they are regarded as qualities of the outside object.
The plain distinction between a sensation and a percept may be settled in the brain by recollecting the accompanying: A sensation is a believing; a percept is a straightforward thought identifying at least one sensations. A sensation is just the conscious recognition of an excitation of a nerve end; a percept results from a distinct mental process regarding the sensation.
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<strong>Creating Perception</strong>
It is of the utmost importance that we create and train our forces of perception. For our education depends materially upon our perceptive power. What matters it to us if the outside world be loaded with manifold objects, on the off chance that we don't perceive them to exist? Upon perception depends the material of our mental world.
Many people experience the world without perceiving even the most clear facts. Their eyes and ears are perfect instruments, their nerves convey accurate reports, but the perceptive faculties of the mind fail to watch and interpret the report of the senses. They see and hear distinctly, but the reports of the senses are not watched or noted by them; they mean nothing to them.
One may see many things, and yet watch but few. It is not upon what we see or hear that our stock of information depends, to such an extent as it does upon what we perceive, notice, or watch. Not just is one's stock of practical learning largely based upon created perception, but one's success also depends materially upon the same faculties.
In business and professional life the successful man is usually he who has created perceptive forces; he who has learned to perceive, watch, and note. The man who perceives and takes mental notes of what occurs in his reality is the man who is apt to know things when such learning is required.
In this age of book education we find that the youngsters are not nearly so observant as are those children who had to rely on the forces of perception for their insight. The youthful Arab or Indian will watch more in a hour than the civilized child will in a day. To live in a universe of books tends, by and large, to weaken the forces of observation and perception.
Perception may be produced by practice. Start by taking notice of the things seen and heard in your usual walks. Keep completely open the eyes of the psyche. Notice the faces of individuals, their walk, their characteristics. Search for interesting and odd things, and you will see them. Try not to experience life in a daydream, but keep a sharp lookout for things of interest and value.
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The most familiar things will repay you for the time and work of examining them in detail, and the practice gained by such tasks will demonstrate valuable in your development of perception. An authority remarks that not very many people, even those living in the country, know whether a cow's ears are above, underneath, behind, or in front of her horns; nor whether cats descend trees head first or tail first.
Not very many people can distinguish between the leaves of the various sorts of familiar trees in their neighborhood. Comparatively couple of people are able to describe the house in which they live, at least past the most general features, the details are obscure.
Houdin, the French conjurer, was able to pass by a shop window and perceive each article in it, and then repeat what he had seen. But he acquired this ability just by constant and gradual practice. He himself decried his aptitude and claimed that it was as nothing compared to that of the fashionable woman who can pass another woman on the street and "take in" her entire attire, from head to foot, at one glance, and have the capacity to describe not just the fashion and quality of the stuffs, but also say if the lace be real or just machine made.
Any study or occupation which requires analysis will build up the energy of perception. Consequently, on the off chance that we will analyze the things we see, settling them into their parts or elements, we will in like manner build up the perceptive faculties. It is a decent exercise to examine some small object and endeavor to discover as many separate points of perception as conceivable, noting them on a sheet of paper.
On the off chance that two people will enter into a contest of this kind, the spirit of rivalry and competition will quicken the forces of observation. Those who have had the patience and perseverance to systematically practice exercises of this kind, report that they notice a steady improvement from the very start.
But regardless of the possibility that one doesn't feel inclined to practice in this way, it will be discovered conceivable to start to take notice of the details of things one sees, the appearance of people's faces, the details of their dress, their tone of voice, the quality of the merchandise we handle, and the little things especially. Perception, similar to attention, takes after interest; but, moreover, interest may be created in things by watching their details, peculiarities, and characteristics.
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Reference:
Your Mind and How to Use It
By: William Walker Atkinson