Perception in Psychology

Perception is called the reflection in man’s consciousness of objects or phenomena, by acting directly on the sense organs, during which process the ordering and unification of isolated sensations occur in integral reflections of things and events. The most important particularities of perception are objectivity, integrity, constancy and understanding. Objectivity is expressed in the so-called act of objectification, that is, in transferring the information obtained from the outside world, to the consciousness of the subject. Integrity refers not to the sum of isolated sensations but to the reflection of the object as a whole, to its integral image.

Constancy consists of the ability to perceive the objects that surround us in a relatively constant way with regard to shape, size, color, etc., regardless of the conditions in which they manifest themselves (distance, lighting, position in space) , which make them continually change their aspects. The understanding or rational nature of perception refers to the fact that, although it arises as a result of the direct effect of the stimulus on the receptors, what is perceived is always categorized, that is, the object is classified in a certain group or class, it is conceptualized by words .

Human perception is always generalized and depends on the orientation of the personality. For this reason, it must be expected that perception may be altered in various ways: in the difficulty of recognition, in the deformations of the material received, in the delusions of sensations and false recognitions, in the transformations of the motivational aspect to that of perceptual activity.

Agnosia

Agnosia is called the difficulty of recognizing objects, sounds. A great deal of work has been devoted to the problem of agnosia, especially visual agnosia. Visual agnosias are divided into:

1. Agnosia of objects, when patients did not recognize objects or their representations.
2. Agnosia to color and letters.
3. Diffuse agnosia.

In a series of patients (with organic brain disorders of different genesis), agnosia phenomena are manifested in that they separate one from the other sign of the perceived object, that is, they do not achieve synthesis. Thus, the representation of a tack is described by a sick person saying: “Above he has a hat, below a toothpick, which is this, I don’t know”; another patient describes a key as “a ring and a rod.”

Attention disturbances

Attention is considered as the psychic function that allows concentrating the activity at a point or in a certain situation that has a certain significance for the personality (stable or situational). It lacks its own content and is manifested within the framework of perception and thought, although more precisely it can be said that attention constitutes a facet of all cognitive processes, precisely one in which these processes appear as an activity oriented towards the object and reflecting the correlation of the subject and the object in the degree of receptivity for stimuli at any given time, which allows and facilitates concentration. Generally speaking of active and passive attention or involuntary and voluntary attention.

The tendency and concentration of psychic activity can take on an involuntary character when the purpose of paying attention is raised. It is generally due to interrelated causes, among which are: the character of the external stimulus (novelty, intensity, size) and the internal state of man (entertainment, distraction, previous experiences, current needs). Voluntary attention differs from involuntary attention in that it is directed to objects under the influence of decisions made and established conscious ends. This type of attention is closely related to the interests, needs and aspirations of Man .

It constitutes a generalized and mediated reflection of reality, intimately linked with the sensory cognition of the world and with the practical activity of people. Thought is a special type of human activity, which is formed in practice, when the need to solve a problem appears before man. The activity of thought consists not only in the ability to cognize the most essential elements of reality, but also in the ability to act in accordance with the proposed purpose. The thought process is active, it tends to an end, it is directed to the solution of a certain task.

For the successful execution of the task it is necessary to keep the end constant, develop the program, compare the course of the execution with the expected result. These fundamental theses regarding the nature of thought must be placed at the base of the analysis of the different forms of alterations or deviation from normal thought. Thought disturbances are varied and appear very frequently in mental illnesses, some of them being typical for one illness or another. It is difficult to frame them in a rigid scheme, although three types of fundamental alterations can be established:

1. Alterations in the operational aspect of thinking.
2. Alterations in the dynamics of thought activity.
3. Alterations of the motivational component of thought.

Alterations of psychic states

The psychic state characterizes the psychic activity during a determined period of time, influencing the course of the psychic processes and the personality itself. For example, when there is a state of depression, ideation and behavior slow down and their expression varies, aspirations and self-esteem change. Although it is not possible to reduce psychic states to experiences, they occupy a significant place in them. In the field of psychic states, as in that of processes, the universally accepted classification of cognitive, emotional and volitional states is maintained.

You can also make other considerations:

1. Personal and situational states.
2. Deeper and more superficial states: for example, the state of passion and the state of mind.
3. States that act on man positively or negatively: for example, apathy and inspiration.
4. Long and short states.
5. More or less conscious states: for example, distraction and decision.

There are other psychic states: tension, suggestibility, frustration, anxiety that also occur in normal people.

Personality disturbances

Considerably more is known (although fundamentally in the descriptive, phenomenological level) about the pathological deviations of the personality, than about what from the psychological point of view makes up a normal personality.

Normality has been understood by some as the absence of any psychological symptoms . Other widely used criteria are the relativistic statistical criteria of normality. They are based on two premises:

1. On the statistical understanding of the normal, such as “average” or “most common”.
2. On the relative consideration of normal or pathological attending to a specific social and cultural group.

The consideration of the middle ground and the adaptation to a habitual environment, as the basis of normality, also moves away from the problem of personality, of its development. The concept “normal personality” is empty, devoid of any positive content, since it is defined from external criteria, alien to itself. The statistical relativistic approach, despite its significant popularity is antipsychological, it moves away from the problem of the positive psychological characteristics of the normal personality.

The fundamental difficulty of Allport’s model is that the personal qualities chosen characterize above all the exceptional, mature man and not the common man. In neurotics there is a narrowness of motivation, which is already clearly evident in youth; there is a poverty of social motivations, and even in comparison with normal subjects there are also fewer individual motivations (fun, sexual contact, etc.). They are basically oriented by individual or intimate personal reasons, being the rectors, the family (partner, children) and the self (health, psychic balance).

Techniques to determine psychic disturbances

The analysis of psychopathological phenomena has traditionally been carried out by the method of observation and interviewing patients, and it is because the nature of the psyche is such that it can be established first of all with these methods. But the time has come that in the analysis of psychopathological phenomena, the interrogation and observation methods are complemented with the experiment, which gives the possibility of going from the description of the phenomenon (verification of the alteration) to the analysis of the causes and mechanisms of the formation of symptoms (that is, their explanation).

Of course, the exact and detailed description of psychopathological symptoms has been a completely essential stage in the development of psychiatric knowledge. But in the transition towards the knowledge of the essence and the causes of one or other symptoms, descriptions are not enough; it is necessary to “examine” the psychopathological phenomenon, to exert influence on it, to clarify under what conditions it can be eliminated, increased or provoked. This means that it is necessary, essential, to investigate each symptom experimentally.

Some psychiatrists have tried to avoid this stage and look for the causes of psychopathological symptoms only outside the psychic, at those levels of structure and functions of the body that are the subject of other sciences (biochemistry, pathomorphology, pathophysiology, etc).

The symptoms of mental disorders are not always directly conditioned by the etiology of the disease. Anxiety as a central symptom of a neurotic disorder can be conditioned by factors so dissimilar that it would be difficult to conceive of them as pathogens of the same anxiety syndrome.

Due to the specificity of the psychiatric clinic, the experiment must be peculiarly different from that of the healthy man:

• The instructions must be very simple and “elaborate” according to the specific objective that the experiment fulfills.
• You should always consider the patient’s attitude towards the test (suspicion, shyness, etc.), as well as the symptoms (negativism, depression, hallucination, etc.), which can hinder the expression of a psychic phenomenon that it is intended to model; It is characterized by the multitude, by the large number of methods to be applied, since with a single method it is impossible to fully judge one or another form or level of the alteration. The process of dissolution of the psyche does not take place in a single layer.

Techniques for assessing the perceptual sphere and attention

• Introductory methodological observations
• Auditory perceptions
• Finding the numbers
• Counting
• Switching tests
• Sign simultaneity test

The description of each method will consist of 4 parts. The first part points out the predominant tendency of the technique or method, the possibility of a complementary approach to its data and brief information on the sources of its emergence (this part will be conventionally called “general characterization”. The second part contains the indications about the audiovisual equipment or means necessary to carry out the experiment, what the experimenter must prepare before starting the experiment and also the indications that limit the application of a given method (“material”). In the third part is the description of the order of carrying out the experiment, the instructions and some guidance on how to carry out the experiment protocol (”

In carrying out the experimental work, some methodological advice must be taken into account:

1. Protocolization: the protocols of the experiences must be filled out at the time of their realization; this should not be postponed. They may not be as complete and careful as you would like, but instead they will be much more truthful and accurate. With the gradual acquisition of the habit this work is perfected.
2. Forms of help. In the process of executing the experimental tasks, the experimenter asks questions and helps the subject to correctly execute the task. The forms of this help can be very diverse and are usually grouped into 3 types or phases.

Helping is even asking again, that is, the request to repeat one word or another, since this draws the attention of the patient to what was said or done. Another type of help is the approval of the patient’s actions and encouragement, for example, with the words “well, go ahead.” Questions about why the patient did one or another action may help, since such questions help the patient to clarify his own ideas. The most significant help are the allusive questions or critical objections from the experimenter (at a first level). The next level of help is the suggestion, the advice to act one way or another. The experimenter can show the patient how to act and ask him to individually repeat this action (second level). And finally,

In the description of the different techniques that will be studied, the indications of the types of aid that are suitable in this task are cited. Choosing the proper help procedures is one of the most difficult parts of experimental work, this requires great experience and qualification. The general rules to follow here consist of the following:

• Before resorting to demonstration and teaching, make sure that the easiest types of help are sufficient.
• The psychologist must not be talkative or be in general extraordinarily active; their interference in the course of the experiment, that is, in the work of the patient, has to be thoughtful, limited, infrequent.
• Each act of interference (help) must be entered into the protocol (as well as the response reactions and manifestations of the subject).