Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ucsd!nosc!humu!uhccux!todd
From: todd@uhccux.UUCP (The Perplexed Wiz)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Behavior and Perception
Message-ID: <1693@uhccux.UUCP>
Date: 22 Mar 88 06:12:55 GMT
References: <626@dukempd.UUCP> <969@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Reply-To: todd@uhccux.UUCP (The Perplexed Wiz)
Organization: U. of Hawaii, Manoa (Honolulu)
Lines: 58
Keywords: Behavior, Perception, Glasser

In article <969@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) writes:
>He takes a "constructivist" (read: sollipsistic) philosophical position,
>that we "create reality as we go along." This philosophy is very popular
>with cognitivists and cyberneticians, but to my mind is anti-realistic. 
>On this view, the interaction between input (perception, stimulus) and
>existing mental structures is more important than that between input and
>output (action, behavior).  That is, as we act as agents in the world,
>we go about modifying our view of the world (our reality) to the extent
>that the only purpose of our actions is to bring about states of
>"happiness" for that very reality. 

I don't know what you mean by "happiness" but there is no need to bring
into play such a factor to discuss the concept of human's modifying
their perception of the world.  Faced with ambiguous sensory information,
the various cognitive processes attempt to deal with ambiguities as best as
possible.  Often this results in "errors" that we term illusions.  Although
we are most often given examples of visual illusions, there are illusions
for other sensory modalities as well.

One demonstration of how we impose structure on our external reality can be
demonstrated by listening to a long taped loop of the word "at" repeated
for a long period of time..

	at-at-at-at-at-at-at

After a while, you will start to hear other "words" like "bat", "cat",
"mat" and even nonsense words like "zat."  It is even possible to "control"
what "words" you hear.

An everyday example of how we create "reality" for ourselves is the
filling-in process going on all the time to fill the gap left by the blind
spot in each eye where the fibers on the retina collect at go to the brain.
It is not the case that the other eye feeds the necessary information.  You
can test this by simply closing one eye and looking around the world.
Unless, you suffer from some other abnormality, you should NOT see a dark
hole where your blind spot is.  Instead the visual world should appear full
filled in.  You can "see" your blind spot by holding your right index
finger out perpendicular to your arm at arms length.  While closing
your left eye and fixating your eye on some straight ahead spot, move
your finger from the periphery of your vision slowly from the side of
your body to the area in front of your face.  At some point as you move
your finger toward the area in front of your face, your fingertip will
appear to disappear.  But, and this is the important part, there is no
black whole where the tip of your finger should be.  Instead, there is what
you might call a synthesized representation of the world based on an
interpolation of the information provided by other information nearby the
blind spot.

There are countless examples of how the human sensory system plays an
active role in creating a representation of reality.  We are not simply
passive sensation gathering devices.  We take in information and modify it
based on past experience, current information, various physiological
states, etc.  ...todd

-- 
Todd Ogasawara, U. of Hawaii Faculty Development Program
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