PS200 Unit 2 Discussion Board Post

Perception is an individualized mental impression; influenced by sensations, one’s needs and desires and stored memories. There are two means of perceiving, we refer to these processes as bottom-up, when we are processing the characteristics of current stimuli or top-down when expectations or past experiences influence our recognition of stimuli.

This unit’s readings emphasize on visual perception. The primary visual cortex, located in the Occipital lobe, is responsible for basic visual processing (Matlin & Farmer, 2016). Distal stimulus; the actual object, can be identified even if the proximal stimulus; the image registered by our retina, isn’t of great quality. This is in part because of sensory memory; a short-term storage unit with input from all our senses. This is bottom-up information, and it is eventually matched to mental imagery from your long-term memory, which is using top-down processing.

Psychology is the science of behavior and mind; therefore, perception is incredibly important within this field. Consider a Counseling Psychologist, a critical skill for this profession is Social Perceptiveness . Visual perception plays a major role in social perception with the right education, because body language and facial cues are clear indications to one’s current mind set.

Think of a new patient, unbeknownst to the psychologist to be Schizophrenic. Using mental imagery, you perceive them to be in a catatonic state. Although this is an ambiguous symptom, you know from prior knowledge that this along with other symptoms, is an indication of Schizophrenia. You can use perceptual testing methods and subjective viewing to understand their perception to aid in diagnosing them; because scientist have identified abnormalities in visual processing of those with Schizophrenia. (Butler, Silverstein, and Dakin, 2008)

National Center for O*NET Development. 19-3031.02. O*NET Online. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from

https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/19-3031.02

Butler, P. D., Silverstein, S. M., & Dakin, S. C. (2008). Visual Perception and Its Impairment in Schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry, 64(1), 40–47. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.03.023

Matlin, M.W. & Farmer, T.A. (2016). Cognition, 9th Edition [VitalSouce bookshelf version]. Retrieved from

https://kaplan.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781119177678https://kaplan.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781119177678/

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