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Accuracy and Inaccuracy in Perception

17 September, 2015 - 14:19

Learning Objectives

  1. Describe how sensation and perception work together through sensory interaction, selective attention, sensory adaptation, and perceptual constancy.
  2. Give examples of how our expectations may influence our perception, resulting in illusions and potentially inaccurate judgments.

The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin sense the world around us, and in some cases perform preliminary information processing on the incoming data. But by and large, we do not experience sensation—we experience the outcome of perception—the total package that the brain puts together from the pieces it receives through our senses and that the brain creates for us to experience. When we look out the window at a view of the countryside, or when we look at the face of a good friend, we don’t just see a jumble of colors and shapes—we see, instead, an image of a countryside or an image of a friend (Goodale & Milner, 2006). 1