1. Sensation- detected information from our sensory organs sent to the brain
Perception- Bringing meaning to the information signaled in our brain through interpretation and organization
2. This may be confusing to students because it can be hard to detach the association of a perception with its sensation. To remember the difference, Think of a Sensation as your friend and a Perception as your friend's friend. Sensation occurs on its own, whereas perception requires sensation to be present. You only know Perception through your friend, Sensation.
3. Sensation and Perception can be compared to a foreign word and it's definition. A foreign word just by itself is an abstract grouping of information of characters and sounds, but when it is interpreted by a language you understand, the word is suddenly given meaning. A way to find the word's meaning can be by looking at its root words or by translating it to another language. This would be using bottom-up processing. Top-down processing can be described by knowing a definition and from there figuring out the word which it accompanies.
Julia, I enjoyed your description of how to differentiate between sensation and perception to a confused student. I thought it was interesting the way you almost portrayed perception as dependent on sensation, which is something I did not really consider. Also, your example was interesting in that it dealt more with sensation and perception's relationship, while mine dealt specifically with a sensation and how we perceive it.
ReplyDeleteJulia,
ReplyDeleteYour way of differentiating the term was very intriuging. I had not thought about the two in that manner but thinking about it that way seems to be very helpful. In addition, your descriptions of top-down and bottom-up processing were easy to read and understand.