Perception: Core Theory

Constructivist theory supports the idea of top-down processing of information. This means that your past experiences, thoughts and expectations affect your perception. For example, we recognise the people we share a classroom with because we expect them to be there every day. What is already in your mind affects what you see. A term associated with this idea is perceptual set, a tendency to perceive a scene, situation or object on the basis of what you except to see. Also, how we are feeling can affect what we see.This is called Motivation. Research showed that hungry and thirsty people saw pictures of food and drink as brighter than pictures of other objects.

Limitations:

1. If perception requires experience, then how do we explain the newborn baby's ability to perceive their world?
- Babies as young as two months appear to recognise faces and complex patterns, and six month olds will not crawl over an imaginary cliff edge despite their limited experience of the environment.

2. The effect of illusions actually questions rather than supports the theory.
- If we think about it logically, then we should not fall for the same illusion time and time again. If perception is about experience, then we should learn not to be fooled by an illusion the second time around.

	Created by ruth.meskel over 10 years ago

Note on Psychology Unit 2 (core theories and studies), created by ruth.meskel on 29/05/2014.

Psychology Unit 2 (core theories and studies)