Psychology Indirect Theory of Perception

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Beckie Cogger Gregory’s indirect theory of perception Gregory believed that perception of sense data happens by combining information received from the senses, with stored knowledge from the brain. Our perception is indirect because it relies on stored knowledge about the world. According to Gregory’s theory, perception is made up of three things: sense data, knowledge stored in the brain and a hypothesis or expectation of what is out there. He claims that our brain develops a hypothesis in order to make sense of incoming data. A study done by Bruner in 1951 demonstrates the role of previous knowledge producing a hypothesis about the world. Researchers showed false playing cars to participants, for example, red clubs and black hearts. The participants expected to see red hearts and black clubs so they're visual system coped by ‘seeing’ cards that were purple or brown instead, which shows how expectations distorted their perceptions. Gregory states that the formation of an incorrect hypothesis is what leads to illusions. For instance, we expect converging lines to help tell us if an object is near or far away, but a misapplied hypothesis can lead perception to be distorted in illusions such as the necker cube. Support for the role of expectation comes from a study done by Palmer in 1975. Participants were shown contextual scenes such as a kitchen and the shown either an appropriate object e.g a loaf or a similar object such a mailbox which looks like a loaf or an entirely different object such as a drum kit. When shown the mailbox, participants often reported that they saw a loaf. Their stored knowledge about what is stored in a kitchen lead them to form this perception. This effect was not present when participants where shown an object entirely different such as the drum kit. This shows how expectation plays a key role in peoples perception. A

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