Journal #2

Olivia Van Houten

History & Systems

Journal #2

Chapter 14- The Perception Psychologists



Summary:

            Chapter 14 looks at perception related to our five senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Perception is seen as a “fundamental psychological function” as it is looked at as the minds link to reality. This chapter focuses on our perception when it comes to sight. Greek philosophers, Plato and Democritus, created their own concepts of visual perception and how images reach the brain. Ultimately both of their theories were wrong. German astronomer, Johannes Kepler, connected that our eyes are like cameras. It is true that like a camera the image is projected by the lens is upside down in our eye too. This comparison is good in a lot of ways but also, vision is not the same as taking a picture. Another question that was asked was about is what we see actually what it looks like. Perception is our contact with reality, we only know what our senses tell us. 

Below are some visual illusions that reinforce all of the information given in the chapter about perception:

Elements of Thought:

o   The questions that were asked in this chapter include: how do images from the outside reach the brain? and does what we are looking at look like what we see? These questions are to determine how our senses work to interpret what we are seeing in the real world.

o   The purpose of this chapter was to examine perception and the way that perception is different for every person.

o   The information used in this chapter were the studies that psychologists conducted and the information they gathered along with many visual illusions throughout the chapter to reinforce the information given to us about perception.