Perception

As Perception the steps of perception including the perception content are known. Perception therefore includes unconscious processes such as the filtering and evaluation of stimuli and conscious processes such as the classification and interpretation of perception. Perception disorders can have psychological or physical causes.

What is the perception?

The steps of perception including the perceptual content are known as perception. Perception therefore includes unconscious processes such as the filtering and evaluation of stimuli and conscious processes such as the classification and interpretation of perception.

Human perception is shaped by numerous sub-processes. The sensory cells are the first instance of perception. Stimuli from the outside world or from the own body reach these receptors, are converted into action potentials and migrate to the central nervous system via afferent nerve pathways.

Not all stimuli are processed at all. The perception works with filter systems that serve as protection against stimulus overload. Only relevant stimuli can even reach human consciousness. In the central nervous system, stimuli are integrated, summed up, sorted and interpreted in the last step.

The process of perception comprises all sub-steps of the human perception process. In the broader definition, perception also relates to the content of the perception, which is always subjective due to the evaluation and filtering processes. A perception of a certain situation never corresponds to an objective impression, but only to a subjectified partial aspect of reality. The perception outlines the individual steps that allow this partial aspect of reality to arise in human consciousness.

Function & task

Perceptions consist of unconscious processes of individual perception or information processing. These processes create images of the perceived aspects in the consciousness of the individual. Perception thus leads to an involuntary and unconscious way of selecting, structuring and classifying perceptions. The perception thus corresponds to a selective-subjective inventory of situations in the external environment.

Together with the subjective content of perception, the term describes the neurophysiological basis of sensory perception. The mental processing of perception corresponds to drawing attention, recognizing, judging and subsuming in the sense of cognition. Perception also includes the unconscious and emotional processes during the processing of perception, which can be summarized under the concept of feeling.

As a term, perception was first used in the Stoa to denote clear and infallible perception. René Descartes took over the term as perceptio ab imaginatione et a sensibus and means with it a grasping with the help of the imagination and the senses. The term coined empiricism and sensualism and corresponded in the broadest sense to sensual perception. George Berkeley coined the idea "To be is to perceive" and thus linked life itself to the concept of perception. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz first used the term of a small perception that occurs below the threshold of consciousness. For Immanuel Kant, perception was a sub-form of the idea that changed the subjective state of the individual. With Johann Friedrich Herbart, the concept of perception experienced a turning point, as it referred to the absorption of what was sensually perceived.

In today's understanding, perception includes, on the one hand, the chain of perception and thus consists of an incoming stimulus, transduction, processing, perception, recognition and an action. On the other hand, today's term also includes the cognition of what is perceived and thus also includes filter effects, context dependency and the influence of experience.

In a biological sense, perception corresponds to the reception and processing of sensory information and stimuli, as well as the processing and interpretation of these stimuli. Sensory stimuli are only percepts when they experience a cognitively subjective processing.

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Illnesses & ailments

Perception is only clinically relevant if it is pathologically changed. Such a change can be due to physiological causes, but also purely psychological causes. In the case of psychological causes, one speaks of a distorted perception. Diseases such as paranoia and depression characterize one of these.

Since perception is shaped by subjective filters, a psychological cause for pathological perceptions can, for example, correspond to a traumatic experience. Stimuli are filtered and interpreted on the basis of previous experiences. A distortion of perception can therefore correspond to an extremely pessimistic worldview, for example, which primarily allows bad impressions from reality to pass into the consciousness of the person concerned and thus promotes depression.

There is talk of a perception distortion as soon as the subjective percept of the individual is extremely different from the objectively present reality. A distortion of perception, for example, characterizes clinical pictures such as anorexia.

Physiological causes for disturbed perception, on the other hand, are mainly neurological disorders or diseases. As the first instance of perception, the sensory cells are connected to the central nervous system via afferent nerves. If these afferent nerve tracts are damaged in the course of trauma, tumor disease, inflammation or degeneration, abnormal sensations can occur. Such a discomfort on the skin can, for example, correspond to a disturbed feeling of cold and hot or a feeling of numbness.

In addition to lesions of the afferent pathways, lesions in the brain can also interfere with the processing of stimuli. Such lesions can be due to diseases such as multiple sclerosis, for example. Strokes or tumors in the central nervous system can also change perception or even make it impossible.

Physiological perception disorders sometimes also occur after the consumption of drugs. For example, some drugs contain substances that can act as neurotransmitters. Hallucinations of various sensory systems can therefore be associated with drug use.

The causes for a disturbed perception can accordingly be diverse and always require a medical clarification. During this clarification, it is first determined whether the disturbed perception is based on a physical or psychological cause.