Sensation and Perception

Sensation and Perception

I . Sensation Vs . Perception

Sensation and perception are two of the major concepts of Psychology But as far as the English language is concerned , sensation and perception doesn 't have much of a difference at all . But in the field of Psychology , these two terms are discriminately different from each other . Sensation is often associated to a stimulus . And even if sensation is a part of perception itself , sensation has its own unique meaning than perception Sensation , as its name suggests , is linked to the person 's senses

br Sensation is more concerned about the characteristics of entities Describing words such as hot , red , loud , or painful , are some examples of words that in direct relation to the concept of sensation . Sensation is something a person can classify . It is his ability to measure compare , locate , or assign a certain characteristic to a certain object Generally speaking , sensation is related to what a person feels , sees hears , smells , or tastes . Sensation is all about a person 's acquaintance with a fact (James , 1950

Perception , on the other hand , is an entirely different concept . If sensation merely detects a stimulus , perception is a little bit deeper that than . Perception is all about acknowledging the stimulus and analyzing it with the use of this mind . If sensation deals with a person 's emotions and senses , perception is one step higher as it involves a person 's mental function . Simply defined , perception is the process of recognizing and interpreting a certain sensation . Its concept indicates that whatever a person takes through his senses are further analyzed in the brain . And as such , an explanation is sought and achieved . Perception has always been regarded as the person 's first step towards logic (Kaernbach et al , 2004

Comparing these two definitions side by side , it is clear to see that sensation is the passive way of processing of bringing forth of information that comes from the outside world going into one 's body through the sense organs and all the way to the brain . On the other hand , perception is more of an active process . It involves the mind to select , organize , and interpret all the stimuli that was brought into a person 's brain through the same process as sensation does

II . Signal Detection Theory

When it comes to measuring sensations and perceptions , psychologists found out that people can be in inconsistent with the way they see feel , hear , or detect a certain stimulus . And even if the level of stimulation is set at a constant level , every person has a different way of processing or acknowledging the stimulus presented to his or her (Pettijohn , 2007

This is where signal detection theory comes in . The signal detection theory is a technique that involves the modeling of a person 's decision-making process in relation to the things he or she senses . What the signal detection theory essentially does is to overcome the problem associated to people 's guessing when a certain stimulus is...