Perception is the process of attaching meaning to sensory input so that intentional action can be taken. It has three stages, but can be extended to five for humans. Perception is continuously updated and refined by using learning experiences and current memories. Gestalt theory differs from classical psychology by stating that the mind experiences the totality of reality and then breaks it into separate parts.
The process of perception is broadly described as the way living things take sensory input and attach meaning to it in their mind so that intentional action can be taken in response to stimuli. With humans, this means that our awareness of and interaction with people and objects in our environment must first be experienced by the five senses in one form or another before judgments can be made about what the experiences mean. Although psychology states that all individuals can see the world in a different light, the important aspect of the perception process is that of selection. Much of what the senses experience must be tuned so that the mind can organize important sensory inputs and interpret them for meaningful action. It is in the final stage of the process of perception, or interpretation, where individuals most directly display their subjective views of the world around them.
While the process of perception is generally thought to have three stages, it is possible to extend it to five, especially when it comes to human beings. Perception is generally thought of as a continuum of experience in which the selection of sensory input is first brought into conscious awareness, then organized in some way, and then interpreted. All living things go through this basic perception process in one way or another as a more elaborate definition of the stimulus-response behavior of living things.
More advanced life forms, however, also have periods of reflection and adjustment which add to the final stage of interpretation. The measurement of perception itself may be based on an organism’s ability to store memories of past experiences and alter the interpretation of similar events as they arise. This can, therefore, lead to changes in behavioral response in which the perceptual process is continuously updated and refined by using both learning experiences and current memories simultaneously.
The types of perception that differ between lower life forms and those that are more immediately aware of their existence can vary based on the perception process that has an element of Gestalt theory. Gestalt theory originated in Germany in the mid-1900s as a result of research by three German psychologists, but it was Max Wertheimer among them who ranked it as defining the nature of human perception in 1924. Gestalt theories of perception focus on the idea that the behavior of an entire system, or individual mind, is not directly determined or controlled by stimuli that can be classified or organized into separate components.
Where Gestalt theory differs from classical psychology in defining the process of perception can be illustrated with an example of a musical score. Standard psychological views of the perception process tell us that a person consciously selects every single note of a musical composition in his or her mind as it is being heard, arranges it, and then interprets it as a recognizable song. The perception process of Gestalt theory instead states that the human mind hears the entirety of the musical composition as a whole, even if parts of it are muffled or missing. The process of perception can therefore be seen as one in which the mind experiences the totality of reality and then breaks it, if necessary, into separate parts, or where it assembles points of stimuli in its environment into a subjective meaning for what the world surrounds it actually is.
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