Perceptual Binding

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Easy enough. Really, these theories are of ancient origin. They are taken from much older philosophies of knowledge and passed off as if they were recently discovered.

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Compare and contrast "the model of perceptual binding" with "the feature-integration theory" and "Gestalt theory."

These are philosophical models of epistemology that have been reworded and rewritten for psychology. Perceptual binding is the hallmark of the British empiricists. The argument is this: when the mind "works on" elements of perception, it divides the objects perceived into different qualities. When the qualities come from different sense organs, there is no problem. But when they come through the same, separating them,while necessary, is more difficult (Holcombe, 2010).

Gestalt Theory is a product of the German turn of the century philosophical culture. It has three elements: sensation, association and attention. Sensation is the process of receiving perceptual data and abstracting qualities from it that are deemed important. These qualities are rendered as images. It assumes that the object seen is the exact cause of the experienced perception.

Association is the first step in coming to know something.

Association "lines up" the qualities perceived with images stored in memory. A true statement is one where the perceived quality is the same as one stored in memory, while a false statement shows no commonalities between perception and a specific memory image. Attention has already been mentioned when we stated that sensation is about "what we deem important." This prioritizing is the domain of attention.

When trying to learn something, certain qualities are more significant than others. For example, when testing the authenticity of a diamond, hardness is far more significant than clarity. Clarity, in fact, is not important at all, since it can be created. Hardness is essential because it is one of the most important properties of a diamond that sets it ...