When it comes to our perception of the world it is all based on the information we receive from our senses and the way we interpret it. One way to concrete that our perception is our reality is to look at the phenomenon of hallucinations. One could argue that because humans can hallucinate in any kind of way we cannot believe our senses. However, one person cannot prove to another that they were hallucinating without also believing in their own senses. If we do not believe in our senses we then come to a continuous loop of what is “real”.
After the accident it appeared that he had become someone completely different exhibiting behaviors that were opposite of his core personality. Contributions to Cognitive Psychology “I think therefore I am” this famous quote by Rene Descartes can easily sum up the human condition. However it raises the question “where does thought come from?” In the study of cognitive psychology the examination of the brain is essential to understanding how and where thought originates. Early on in the science of psychology two standard schools of thought prevailed, the holistic and the phrenology or the idea that cognitive capabilities are separated throughout the brain. Although both have something to offer neither can claim full victory over truth.
Barriers to Effective Communication Language Barriers. Obviously, communication between people who do not speak the same language is a barrier. Even when communicating in the same language, accents and the terminology used may act as a barrier if it is not fully understood by the receiver. For example, a message that includes a lot of specialist jargon, abbreviations and/or regional expressions will not be understood by the receiver who is not familiar with the terminology used. It is also important to note that body language plays a large role in communication and may become a barrier, depending on a person’s perception.
Rational knowledge is often derived from syllogisms. Unless both the major and minor premises of syllogisms are sound, the logical conclusions drawn from the rational thoughts are unsound. Scientists cannot rely on rational knowledge alone because rational knowledge involved only form and not content (Jackson, 2009). Empirical knowledge is gained through objective observations and a person’s experience in relation to his or her senses (Jackson, 2009). A person who relies on empirical knowledge only believes what can be detected by his/her senses (sight, sound, taste, etc.).
Even if we use our senses to obtain basic knowledge, there are cases where your senses may actually deceive you. For example, optical illusions are a distortion of our vision as it reveals how the brain recognizes matter but interprets it differently. With this question posed to the
The Gestalt psychologists stated that when people interpret sensory elements, they tend to see things in the entire form or a pattern rather than as individual, separate entities. When the brain interprets things in groups and arrangements, it allows itself to make sense of an entire object. The brain likes to operate with simplicity; therefore, seeing a group of objects as one whole entity lets the brain function more efficiently. The Gestalt perspective can explain these basic principles of perceptual organization: figure-ground, similarity, proximity, and closure. The first principle is figure-ground.
Are they related at all? Another aspect of the mind-body problem is the general assumption that we have a consciousness. It seems real, especially when debating the mind-body issue in our own heads. We must have a consciousness of some sort in order to even make this stipulation. There are those that say consciousness is merely an after effect of neural events in the brain (epiphenomenalism) and have touted neurological science as their proof.
INTRODUCTION In other to expose Husserl’s phenomenology comprehensively, Matheson outlined two basic critiques on representationalism- the view that consciousness is something like a self enclosed room or box as against the Husserlian view of consciousness as intentional. CRITIQUE OF REPRESENTATIONALISM First, the common –sense realist view that we are conscious of the external world because the world streams into the mind via the senses is misguided because the mind is not literally a physical space (like a camera) into which sense-data can ‘stream’- the mind is not the eyeball or the eardrum. Second, the representationalist theory that states that sense-data allow the mind to reconstruct a ‘representation’ of the outside world and consciousness is an indirect experience of these representations is implausible on close inspection because it seems to be incapable of accounting for the truth: how can I know that my representations are true representations of the world if I never have access to the things themselves against which to measure them. If the representationalist is right, says Matheson, then we live exclusively in a world of ‘copies’ or ‘limitations’ without ever seeing the originals, consequently, we are deluded in thinking that we experience the world and possess no criteria for judging truth. For Matheson, Husserl provides a better conceptual ground for rejecting the representationalist theory.
The former includes the phenomenon of the ‘figure-ground contrast’; that is, how we perceive objects distinctly from their surroundings. This can be studied via so-called projective tests. ‘Constancy’ is also a principle of perception; that is, objects maintain perceptual stability through transformations of various types, such as alterations in size and proportion. The most systematic attempt to study the organization of perceptual phenomena is probably that of the Gestalt (‘form’, ‘figure’, or ‘holistic’) psychologists, who emphasize the role of innate patterning in visual perception, although behaviourist approaches have also been influential, notably in America. (Scott & Marshall 2009) According to the Axia college week five reading Perception and Individual Decision Making (2005) “Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment” (¶ 8).
This evidence can be seen as reliable since it was scientific, conducted in a laboratory, and produced quantative data that makes it easy to summarise and compare with other data. However, it can be argued that this experiment lacks mundane realism and does not reflect real life memory tasks, also that it doesn’t take into account people’s varying ways of remembering words, which may bias the results. Furthermore, individual differences, such as people’s attention spans were not taken into account, which could