SENSATION AND PERCEPTION

10 Sep 2015

Contributed by: Angelika Martorillas,Kesia Mae Pedalino & Jean Heramil

What is the difference between sensation and perception, and how do they work? 

Imagine your phone rings. You take it out and see that it’s an unfamiliar number. You’re wary of telemarketers, but you’re also procrastinating doing homework, so you pick up the call anyway. You hear a voice say, ‘hello’; you perceive that the voice is your friend Alvin. He explains that he’s calling from a friend’s phone and you make plans to see a movie.
Even though you didn’t recognize Alvin’s number, you heard his voice and recognized it as his.Hearing his voice was  sensation; recognizing it was perception. Sensation is passively receiving information through sensory inputs, and perception is interpreting this information.
In the middle part of our discussions we tackled about Sensation and Perception, the example above is one of  our experienced. Through our senses or sensory organs, we come to know our world and what we sense often affects our behavior. Our sense organs are responsible in sensation. And one must be aware or conscious of the stimulus to be able to sense and interpret. And sensation anyway is an essential of perception. It is how we look at others and the world around us. It is also described as interpreting information about other people. Perception affects the way how we communicate with others and it also affects our behavior.

”LAW AND PRINCIPLES OF PERCEPTION

• Continuity

Describes our tendency to perceive objects that seem to have a relationship to each other as being continuous. For example, we perceive the pattern as two lines crossing rather than as two angles joined at their apexes.

• Closure

Closure describes our tendency to look for unity in objects and to see lines as a single unit.  Therefore, given the mere suggestion of an object, we will tend to fill in the details.  For exmple, it is likely that you perceive the series of disconnected lines represened below as a square, and the series of disconnected dots as forming a single circle.

• Proximity

Proximity describes the tendency to perceive objects that are close to one another as being grouped together in a meaningful way. For example, you are likely to perceive no groupings in the following series of poles :

However, by increasing the vertical or horizontal distance between some of the squares we can create a perception of two groups of four squares rather than eight squares:

• Similarity

The law of similarity states that elements within an assortment of objects are perceptually grouped together if they are similar to each other. This similarity can occur in the form of shape, colour, shading or other qualities.

For example, the figure illustrating the law of similarity portrays 8 chairs that group according to their color. In this depiction, 4 of the chairs are light brown and 4 of the chairs are sky blue. We perceive the 4 light brown chairs grouped together, and the skyblue chairs grouped together both forming groups according to their color .

• Symmetry

The law of symmetry states that the mind perceives objects as being symmetrical and forming around a center point. It is perceptually pleasing to divide objects into an even number of symmetrical parts. Therefore, when two symmetrical elements are unconnected the mind perceptually connects them to form a coherent shape. Similarities between symmetrical objects increase the likelihood that objects are grouped to form a combined symmetrical object. For example, the figure depicting the law of symmetry shows a configuration of square and curled brackets. When the image is perceived, we tend to observe three pairs of symmetrical brackets rather than six individual brackets.

• Gestalt

The gestalt effect is the capability of our brain to generate whole forms, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of global figures instead of just collections of simpler and unrelated elements (points, lines, curves,other images and etc…).

                                               

Gestalt principles are important to understand. They sit at the foundation of everything we do visually as designers. They describe how everyone visually perceives objects.
The principles above should be relatively easy to understand. For most of them, the definition and the image are probably all you needed to understand the principle. At the same time, understanding the basic ideas of these principles isn’t the same as understanding how they influence design.
We’ll see how symmetry helps us balance a composition and how combining focal points and similarity allows us to create a visual structure  in a design.
Take a deeper look in the images above and try to find the other forms of  image.

References:

Tuck, Michael (Aug 17, 2010). “Gestalt Principles Applied in Design”. Retrieved 2014-12-19.

http://www.theoryofknowledge.net/ways-of-knowing/sense-perception/how-do-our-senses-work.php