What is Perception?
Perception is the ability to see, hear and become aware of something through your 5 senses.
The 5 Senses:
 Taste- When you are at the grocery store, they have taste testing for a reason. The smell of
fish could be terrible but once you taste it and like it, you’re more likely to buy it.
 Sight- Sight impacts our perception by letting us know we like a picture of a sunny beach,
chair, and volleyball rather than a dark, secluded alley behind a bar.
 Touch- Touch impacts our perception by letting us know to not touch cactus, simply.
 Smell- Smell impacts our perception by making us aware that there is a delicious roast beef
cooking 2 blocks down the road at a festival.
 Hear- Hearing impacts our perception simply because we hear commands and questions
daily. If we can not interpret what we hear, we can not adequately respond.
Now how do we interpet these senses? Critical thinking plays a huge factor in perceiving our 5 senses.
Lion?
Can you decide what these pictures are?
Or Mouse?
1. Taste could also have an
impending factor on comfort
level.
“Eating home country food offered
emotional and physical
sustenance; students felt comforted
by familiar taste”
(Brown, L., Edwards, J., & Hartwell, H.
2010).
2. Sight is simply “the ability to see”
(The Free Dictionary,2014).
3. Touch is the sense that allows
us to “test” the water in the pool
when we are about to jump in
to see whether it is too cold or
just right.
4. Smell is the sense that can
help you know when your meal is
ready, or burned.
5. Hearing is the last of the 5 senses. Hearing allows us to hear fire alarms,
hear when someone is calling our names, listen to direction, and/or listen
to music. “Deaf” is the term used for a person who is unable to hear.
“A 39-year-old Englishwoman was
overcome with emotion after being
able to hear for the first time thanks to
modern medical technology (Held,
2014).
HOW DOES PERCEPTION EFFECT
CRITICAL THINKING?
Selection:
Organization:
Interpretation:
Depending on the individual and the
environmental factors that are in play
such as smell, sight or touch we tend
to attach to one particular stimuli.
That is our selection.
Once you have decided the one
particular stimuli your brain starts to
interpret the stimuli you’re receiving.
After your brain starts to register the
stimuli your can then fully appreciate
and react to the stimuli.
Brown, L., Edwards, J., & Hartwell, H. (2010). A taste of the unfamiliar. Understanding the
meanings attached to food by international postgraduate students in England. Appetite, 54(1), 202-207.
doi:10.1016/j.appet.2009.11.001 retrieved from:
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/eds/detail?vid=24&sid=8b12ccad-a1c7-465e-8a69f6fa26ffcacc%40sessionmgr4005&hid=4202&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%
3d#db=a9h&AN=47716824
The Free Dictionary. (2014). By Farlex. Definition of “Sight”. Retrieved From:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sight
Kevin S. Held, KSDK. (March 28,2014). Deaf Woman Gets Emotional After Being Able to Hear For
the First Time. Retrieved From: http://www.ksdk.com/story/life/2014/03/28/deaf-woman-gets-emotionalafter-being-able-to-hear-for-first-time/7001851/