The Role Of Sense Perception In Our Life
Our main and most dominant way of interacting with the world is our senses. We don’t have any exact definition that we can use to describe this term. Still, in the most general of definitions, sense perception is any of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch, by which the body perceives an external stimulus.
Sense receptors in our body, such as the fingertips or our eyes are stimulated by sensory information, which then moves as electrical impulses to the brain, that interprets senses such as taste, sound, temperature, pressure, smell, and sight. This process that is known as instantaneous, integrates the sensory stimulation into our understanding in a way that we use the term “perception”.
There are four characteristics of sense perception: variable, human, selective and interpretive. When we talk about the human characteristic we can explain that every living creature has special receptors that have the ability to capture a particular kind and range of environment, for example: animals have their own senses that we do not have such as bats which can navigate in absolute darkness by using sense perception in a completely different way from human species. Although these traits are specific to not human species after many scientific explorations, we have discovered that some individuals have similar born traits to those mentioned above.
The idea of limitation is developed by us, who want to compare ourselves with other animals to which we think our senses have a lesser acuity too. Being aware that our sense impressions are interpretive and selective leads us to a kind of curiosity toward things, requiring comprehending how and why they happen, leading us to wonder how we could gain more accurate information. There are also other ways of knowing such as memory, reason, intuition, language, imagination, faith, and emotion which affect in our perspectives and judgment that our senses are limited. This happens because of some limitations related to sense perception such as our emotional reaction, rational conclusions, and imaginative responses. Every time we come in a contact with an object we react emotionally by imagining and concluding in a kind of intuition feeling.
Sense perception, although can be manipulated, remains a physical tool in human life. This meaning that the senses cooperate with our surrounding and the way we perceive, feel and analyze them. This can be visible in almost all scenarios that happen throughout a person’s life.
One advantage of sense perception is the extending of it with the aid of a helpful tool, nowadays, technology. Technology’s development has extended in one way or another, our observational knowledge spectacularly. You probably might ask how it is possible. A simple example is when our opinions and aspects are changed regarding the universe, about facts that no one has known till now. This phenomenon became possible because of some legendary technological inventions such as the one of the “telescope”, discovered in 1610 by Galilei. An invention that helped and developed our sight, when using it, you see farther by continuing to gain observational knowledge through senses.
As I have slightly mentioned previously in the upper part of this opinion based format the link that sense perception has with the other ways of knowing is undeniable yet although it is permanent and coherent to every possible real- life scenario and situation there are still many aspects of this that we haven’t explored; including the following:
Memory can be considered an important aspect of how we define, sense and use our different senses. This can be shown in the scenario when in the moment one tastes or smells something that sense is going to be engraved in their memory. For example, if a child is handed a milk chocolate they will always remember that it tastes sweet so even if later on in their life they eat another one they will always be aware of what it tastes like and how it made them feel while eating.
Intuition is quite crucial to the day-to-day usage of our senses. Just like all the others in this graph, they are all interconnected with one another, thus meaning that it can vary upon the other WOKs. In the case and scenario of this explanation, I will use memory as the locking tool between these two. Let’s say that as I child one has been exposed to a thunderstorm with vast amounts of rain and wind. They are well aware that during intense sessions of wind things will begin tumbling, falling and thus making accidents. If the same person now would have to go out under the same circumstances then they would be very conscious of their surroundings and always be aware of every little thing moving around them trying to keep themselves safe
There is a cooperative relationship between reason and sense perception, however, we are well aware that sense perception is the dominant one in this duo even though it only provides a fraction of what we perceive and how we perceive it because as we all know we use reason to fill in the gaps in between the missing information.
Imagination and sense perception can work together just like they can tear each other apart. This can be seen during the many different interactions that they have together. Per say; a painter is trying to create his new masterpiece yet the vase he is trying to draw isn’t placed in front of him. If he really is determined to create that image he will have to use his memory and past use of the sense of sight to reminisce the way that vase looked in every specific crevice to be able to recreate it in a very realistic manner.
Language is vital upon the human aspect of hearing thus saying that even if one doesn’t fluently speak a language they can still identify what it is by using their prior knowledge and the different yet few words they know of that speech.
Emotion affects sense perception directly by considering the point that we have a selective trait for the way we gain and perceive knowledge. Thus saying that if we have a negative past correlation with an event or an object then our senses will be naturally manipulated to mold in the place and format of our preferences.
Thus saying that I was to conclude this whole thesis there would be a broad amount of ways that I could use to describe and perceive sense perception and these were just a few.
