Limitations And Perception

Limitations and Perception
Perception may be defined as the process by which an individual selects, organizes and interpret stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the environment in which he/she lives. There are five senses that help us to understand and evaluate the stimuli of the environment. These senses are sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. By these senses we percieve what is going on around us. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sense organs. For example, vision involves light striking the retina of the eye. However, these senses are sometimes limited. Something cannot be understood crystal clear even if the five senses are used. Thus, preception is limited in terms of senses. “We have eyes to see with, ears to hear with why then do we err?” Sometimes senses are not enough to understand a situation.
Perception can be limited and it varies from person to person. Human perception is limited by the capacity of sense organs. Thus, perception is limited in terms of biological limitations. The human eye has evolved to detect visible light in a spectrum. It is functionally limited by the density of the receptors. What a person sees may not be what is really seen. About one quarter of the human brain is involved in visual processing - more than any other sense. However, this is not enough to overcome limits of sight. Among young, healthy humans, the range of frequencies that can be picked up by the human ear is usually cited as 20 — 20,000 Hz, which this upper limit tends to decrease as age increases. Thus what a person hears may not be what can really be heard. The sense of taste is the weakest of the human senses because it is related with the sense, smelling. The sense of touch is also limited because of the specific number of pressure receptors under the skin. It can be considered when the senses are combined that a stimulus achieves its greatest impact. It is obvious that perception gets better with all of the senses, however, all of the senses may be wrong, too because perception depends not only on the physical stimuli, but also on the stimuli’s relation to the surrounding field and on conditions within the individual. When an individual looks at something and attempts to interpret what he/she sees, that interpretation is heavily influenced by the personal characteristics of the individual perceiver.

Perception may be influenced with environmental effects. Some of these effects are biological limitations. There are factors in the perceiver; attitudes, motives, interests, experience and expectations. There are also factors in situation; time and setting. There are factors in the target; motion, sounds, size, background which are linked to five senses. These are the factors affecting perception. When evaluating something the time interval and the place that situation takes place in, personal experience and attitudes, sounds and visuals affect the perception of a person. An individual may be prejudiced to another individual. Thus, this may affect the perception.
“We have eyes to see with, ears to hear with why then do we err?” Five senses that human beings have are not enough to understand a situation. Understanding and evaluating situations also include some personal limitations. Thus, the perception may be varied from person to person and cannot be same for all the people that are in the same situation.