Perceptual psychology
Encyclopedia
Perceptual psychology is a subfield of cognitive psychology
that is concerned specifically with the pre-conscious innate aspects of the human cognitive system: perception
.
Perceptual psychology is a branch off of cognitive psychology dealing with mental processes that we use in everyday living. Any time you problems-solve, make a decision, make a memory or reflect on one you are using a example of perceptual psychology . Perceptual psychology is often used in therapy to help a patient better their problem-solving skills.
A pioneer of this field was James J. Gibson. A major study was that of cognitive bias
es mostly due to affordance
s, i.e. the perceived utility of objects in, or features of, one's surroundings. According to Gibson, such features or objects were perceived as affordances and not as separate or distinct objects in themselves. This view was central to several other fields as software user interface
and usability engineering
, environmentalism
in psychology, and ultimately to political economy
where the perceptual view was used to explain the omission of key inputs or consequences of economic transactions, i.e. resources and wastes.
Gerard Egan and Robert Bolton explored areas of interpersonal interactions based on the premise that people act in accordance with their perception of a given situation. While behaviour is obvious, a person's thoughts and feelings are masked. This gives rise to the idea that the most common problems between people are based on the assumption that we can guess what the other person is feeling and thinking. They also offered methods, within this scope, for effective communications. This includes: reflective listening
, assertion skills, conflict resolution
etc.
Nativists think we are born with all the perceptual abilities needed. This is the favored of the theories on perception. Empiricists debate that we are not born with perceptual abilities but instead that we must learn them.
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways....
that is concerned specifically with the pre-conscious innate aspects of the human cognitive system: perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
.
Perceptual psychology is a branch off of cognitive psychology dealing with mental processes that we use in everyday living. Any time you problems-solve, make a decision, make a memory or reflect on one you are using a example of perceptual psychology . Perceptual psychology is often used in therapy to help a patient better their problem-solving skills.
A pioneer of this field was James J. Gibson. A major study was that of cognitive bias
Cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations. Implicit in the concept of a "pattern of deviation" is a standard of comparison; this may be the judgment of people outside those particular situations, or may be a set of independently verifiable...
es mostly due to affordance
Affordance
An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, which allows an individual to perform an action. For example, a knob affords twisting, and perhaps pushing, while a cord affords pulling...
s, i.e. the perceived utility of objects in, or features of, one's surroundings. According to Gibson, such features or objects were perceived as affordances and not as separate or distinct objects in themselves. This view was central to several other fields as software user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
and usability engineering
Usability engineering
Usability engineering is a field that is concerned generally with human-computer interaction and specifically with making human-computer interfaces that have high usability or user friendliness...
, environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
in psychology, and ultimately to political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
where the perceptual view was used to explain the omission of key inputs or consequences of economic transactions, i.e. resources and wastes.
Gerard Egan and Robert Bolton explored areas of interpersonal interactions based on the premise that people act in accordance with their perception of a given situation. While behaviour is obvious, a person's thoughts and feelings are masked. This gives rise to the idea that the most common problems between people are based on the assumption that we can guess what the other person is feeling and thinking. They also offered methods, within this scope, for effective communications. This includes: reflective listening
Reflective listening
Reflective listening is a communication strategy involving two key steps: seeking to understand a speaker's idea, then offering the idea back to the speaker, to confirm the idea has been understood correctly. It attempts to "reconstruct what the client is thinking and feeling and to relay this...
, assertion skills, conflict resolution
Conflict resolution
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of some social conflict. Often, committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest...
etc.
Nativism Vs. Empiricism
Nativism and empiricism have been researched and debated to find out which one is the basis of research in the development of perception.Nativists think we are born with all the perceptual abilities needed. This is the favored of the theories on perception. Empiricists debate that we are not born with perceptual abilities but instead that we must learn them.