Editing Perception (section)

== Process and terminology ==<!-- linked from disambiguation: update or define {{Anchor|Process and terminology}} if changed -->
The process of perception begins with an object in the real world, known as the ''[[distal]] stimulus'' or ''distal object''.<ref name="Goldstein52">Goldstein (2009) pp. 5–7</ref> By means of light, sound, or another physical process, the object stimulates the body's sensory organs. These sensory organs transform the input energy into neural activity—a process called ''[[Transduction (physiology)|transduction]]''.<ref name="Goldstein52" /><ref name="pomerantz">Pomerantz, James R. (2003): "Perception: Overview". In: Lynn Nadel (Ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science'', Vol.&nbsp;3, London: Nature Publishing Group, pp.&nbsp;527–537.</ref> This raw pattern of neural activity is called the ''proximal stimulus''.<ref name="Goldstein52" /> These neural signals are then transmitted to the brain and processed.<ref name="Goldstein52" /> The resulting mental re-creation of the distal stimulus is the ''percept''.

To explain the process of perception, an example could be an ordinary shoe. The shoe itself is the distal stimulus. When light from the shoe enters a person's eye and stimulates the retina, that stimulation is the proximal stimulus.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/07/e07glossary.html|title=Sensation and Perception|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110510081956/http://www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/07/e07glossary.html|archive-date=10 May 2011|url-status=dead|access-date=24 March 2011}}</ref> The image of the shoe reconstructed by the brain of the person is the percept. Another example could be a ringing telephone. The ringing of the phone is the distal stimulus. The sound stimulating a person's auditory receptors is the proximal stimulus. The brain's interpretation of this as the "ringing of a telephone" is the percept.

The different kinds of sensation (such as warmth, sound, and taste) are called ''[[Stimulus modality|sensory modalities]]'' or ''stimulus modalities''.<ref name="pomerantz" /><ref name="WillisCoggeshall2004">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uqnKCewO2voC&pg=PA1|title=Sensory Mechanisms of the Spinal Cord: Primary afferent neurons and the spinal dorsal horn|last1=Willis|first1=William D.|last2=Coggeshall|first2=Richard E.|date=31 January 2004|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-0-306-48033-1|page=1|access-date=25 March 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111109162356/http://books.google.com/books?id=uqnKCewO2voC&pg=PA1|archive-date=9 November 2011|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Bruner's model of the perceptual process ===
{{See also|Social identity theory}}
Psychologist [[Jerome Bruner]] developed a model of perception, in which people put "together the information contained in" a target and a situation to form "perceptions of ourselves and others based on social categories."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://catalogue.pearsoned.ca/assets/hip/ca/hip_ca_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/013613436X.pdf|title=Perception, Attribution, and, Judgment of Others|website=Pearson Education|access-date=8 March 2020|archive-date=25 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225071326/http://catalogue.pearsoned.ca/assets/hip/ca/hip_ca_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/013613436X.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Alan">Alan S. & Gary J. (2011). Perception, Attribution, and Judgment of Others. Organizational Behaviour: Understanding and Managing Life at Work, Vol. 7.</ref> This model is composed of three states:

# When people encounter an unfamiliar target, they are very open to the informational [[sensory cue|cue]]s contained in the target and the situation surrounding it.
# The first stage does not give people enough information on which to base perceptions of the target, so they will actively seek out cues to resolve this ambiguity. Gradually, people collect some familiar cues that enable them to make a rough categorization of the target.
# The cues become less open and selective. People try to search for more cues that confirm the categorization of the target. They actively ignore and distort cues that violate their initial perceptions. Their perception becomes more selective and they finally paint a consistent picture of the target.

=== Saks and John's three components to perception ===
According to Alan Saks and Gary Johns, there are three components to perception:<ref>Sincero, Sarah Mae. 2013. "Perception." ''Explorable.'' Retrieved 8 March 2020 (https://explorable.com/perception).</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=March 2024}}

# '''The Perceiver''': a person whose awareness is focused on the stimulus, and thus begins to perceive it. There are many factors that may influence the perceptions of the perceiver, while the three major ones include (1) [[Motivation|motivational state]], (2) [[emotional state]], and (3) [[experience]]. All of these factors, especially the first two, greatly contribute to how the person perceives a situation. Oftentimes, the perceiver may employ what is called a "perceptual defense", where the person will only see what they want to see.
# '''The Target''': the ''object'' of perception; something or someone who is being perceived. The amount of information gathered by the sensory organs of the perceiver affects the interpretation and understanding about the target.
# '''The Situation''': the ''environmental'' factors, timing, and degree of stimulation that affect the process of perception. These factors may render a single stimulus to be left as merely a stimulus, not a percept that is subject for brain interpretation.

==== Multistable perception ====
Stimuli are not necessarily translated into a percept and rarely does a single stimulus translate into a percept. An ambiguous stimulus may sometimes be transduced into one or more percepts, experienced randomly, one at a time, in a process termed ''[[multistable perception]]''. The same stimuli, or absence of them, may result in different percepts depending on subject's culture and previous experiences.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Eliot R. |last2=Zárate |first2=Michael A. |date=1992 |title=Exemplar-based model of social judgment. |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0033-295x.99.1.3 |journal=Psychological Review |volume=99 |issue=1 |pages=3–21 |doi=10.1037/0033-295x.99.1.3 |issn=0033-295X|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Ambiguous figures demonstrate that a single stimulus can result in more than one percept. For example, the [[Rubin vase]] can be interpreted either as a vase or as two faces. The percept can bind sensations from multiple senses into a whole. A picture of a talking person on a television screen, for example, is bound to the sound of speech from speakers to form a percept of a talking person.