Vision, Senses, and the Motor Control System

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1. What role does experience play in object recognition and visual perception? Be sure to include a specific example from your experience.

Objective recognition is the visual perception of familiar objects. By definition, then, perceiving familiar objects means that you have previously experienced the object. In other words, this prior information from experience is stored in memory, which means that experience plays an essential part in objective recognition, as we pay attention to that want we have experienced in the past. For example, the notion of Selective Attention, the process of discriminating between what is important and is irrelevant, which is often linked to prior experience and object recognition, which is also influenced by motivation. For example, students in class should focus on what the professor is saying and the lecture and overheads being presented in class. However, these students may be paying attention to the other things instead, and selectively attend to some students they had met from a past experience instead of listening to the course material and professor's lecture. Therefore, by definition, visual perceptual is also impacted through prior experience because visual perception is the object recognition through visual perceptual processes. Specifically, visual perceptual is impacted by perceptual expectancy based on experience--how we perceive the world is a function of our past experiences, culture, and biological makeup. For example, as a Canadian or an American, a person might "visually" look at a highway, and expect to see cars, trucks, etc, not helicopters. However, a person from a different country with different 'life' experiences and history may not have any idea what to expect and thus be surprised when they see cars go driving by. Another example might be when a person looks at a painting and may not really understand the message the artist is trying to convey. But, if someone tells that person about the picture, the person might begin to see things in the painting that she or he was unable to see before. This is role experience plays in visual perception (http://www.alleydog.com/101notes/s&p.html).

Can you think of others examples to consider? Also see http://www.alleydog.com/101notes/s&p.html for a broader discussion.

2. How does sensation and perception affect the five senses?
Let's get some definitions out of the way.

- "Sensations can be defined as "the passive process of bringing information from the outside world into the body and to the brain." The process is passive in the sense that we do not have to be consciously engaging in a "sensing" process.
- Perception can be defined as the active process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting the information brought to the brain by the senses." (http://www.alleydog.com/101notes/s&p.html)
- Sensation and perception are related, but different, and affect the senses. Also, sensation and perception plays two complimentary but different roles in how people interpret our world.

By definition, sensation is a physical feeling resulting from stimulation of a ...