General Overview
Perception is our sensory experience of the world around us.
It involves two components: first
receptive recognition of environmental stimuli and second reactions we elicit in
response.
Take a moment to think of all the things you perceive on a
daily basis. At any given moment, you might see familiar objects in your
environment, feel the touch of objects and people against your skin, smell the
aroma of a home-cooked meal, see a viscous dog across the street and take
action by going inside to avoid getting attacked, see an infant begin to
recognize familiar faces and voices, hearing your mom tell you it’s time for
dinner and going downstairs to the dinner table, seeing someone walk past your
house, or hear the sound of music playing in your
next door neighbor's apartment. In driving we have multiple components of
perception such as paying attention receptively to the road as it winds and
narrows, depth perception, movement
sense as we speed up and slow down, merging of traffic just to name a few.
All of these sensory experiences make up the conscious/unconscious
reactions to our experiences. Perception
creates the responses as we interact with the people and objects around us. It’s
our perception…awareness…sensitivity…acuity of the world around us!
Favorite Part
Chapter four on visual attention was one of the most
captivating chapters. “Visual attention looks at how the observer seeks out
stimuli in scenes, how they perceive some things and not others, and how these
active processes shape their perception of the things around them.” Often, as
in driving, we need to pay attention to many things at once. This is known as
divided attention. We are visually attending and perceiving information on many
levels such as attention to cars, stop signs, people crossing the road, or
traffic lights. Think about how often you engage in divided attention. I hope that I have your selective attention as
you read my post!
Selective attention is the ability to focus on specific
objects and ignore others by filtering. Some people find it extremely difficult
to focus on one specific stimulus and disregard all the distractions. These
people are often diagnosed with attention deficits. Students with may have
trouble focusing on the teacher with the distractions around them such as the
students in the back of the classroom talking, pencils dropping, or friends
walking past their classroom. Medication is often used to enhance focus and
filter out distractions; however this does not fix the problem. It is a temporary
solution which wears off in an allotted time.
Selective attention can cause change blindness which is the
difficulty in detecting changes in scenes. Some movies had errors that go
unseen due to change blindness. Normally, you may not notice changes in scenes
the first time you watch a movie. However, by the third time you may start to
notice changes in scenes.
See if you can find the changes in the different scenes.
(Ignore my dad’s slightly different facial expressions and placement of hands.)
Sometimes our attention is so selective, we have trouble
noticing change, even when it should be obvious.
Inattentional blindness is our failure to perceive a
stimulus that isn’t attended, even if it’s in full view.
Below is a youtube
video where you can test your awareness.
Extension
I recently read an article on neurofeedback therapy for attention
disorders. Neurofeedback therapy retrains
the brain to produce electrical patterns associated with attention and focus. During
a therapy session, the child would sit in a chair facing a laptop screen that
is connected to electrodes which are applied to the scalp. There is special
software that monitors the electrical activity in the brain. Specifically, it measures
the theta and beta waves. The child would play a game on the laptop. If his or
her attention wanders, the screen goes blank. Then the therapist would
encourage the child to regain focus. The sooner the child regains focus, the
sooner the game comes back on. By praising or rewarding the child for
concentrating on the game should essentially teach him or her to focus in other
settings, such as school. After reading this article I began thinking about all
that I have learned about attention. The neurofeedback therapy basically
teaches children how to engage in selective attention. I think this is a very
effective approach and it should be favored over medication. Medication is a
temporary fix while neurofeedback retrains the brain and often cures the
problem.
You can learn more about neurofeedback from the article
below:
Overall
In conclusion, perception is a complex act of the brain
involving cognition and understanding as it perceives the world around us.
Perception apprehends the multi-sensory experiences of our waking moments and
directs us in action and focus.
Perception is the insight and intuition of our life.
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