Perception (Chapter Four: Rhetoric and Language)
Perception has been a hot topic in my world for the past couple of days. We're doing Human Factors in Theory of Tech Comm right now, and last night discussed perception as an element in communication failures. Most of the focus seemed to be on the mind's ability to see what isn't there - a problem we all run into in proofreading, for example.
I talked about it with a friend after class, and he was very adamant about his sense that what we were discussing wasn't perception, but rather cognition. As I understood his argument, perception is limited to the brain's reception of sensory input. Cognition involves how we interpret that input, which would result in our not being able to see typos.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines the terms as:
perception - an awareness of things through the physical senses, esp. sight
cognition - connected with thinking or conscious mental processes
It seems to me that what we're thinking about here falls in between the available language. If cognition is conscious, then misreading words doesn't fit there because we do that unconsciously. But it's more than just taking in information through physical senses too, because we're obviously doing something with the information on a subconscious level. (One would hope we're not consciously leaving those typos in there.) What we need is a new word: cogception. Or else someone who knows of a word for it should tell me about it.
Rambling my way through Chapter Four (Rhetoric and Language), I found that Gorgias and Protagoras were thinking about perception as well. According to P&P,
"For Gorgias and Protagoras, an object in itself and an object perceived are two different things. First, an object in itself is not subject to human perception and, as such, falls outside human awareness...
Second, an object perceived exists only as perceived, only for the one who perceives it, and only at the moment of perception.
Moreover, one can perceive an object only partially, not in its factual totality; therefore any one thing exists only in the light of the perceptual capabilities of its perceivers.
Further, one's perceptual experience of something is subjective and therefore not necessarily shared by others.
Last, one's perception of the same thing changes as a function of space, time, and conditions.
Likewise, the same object can now be perceived as one thing and later as another. Similarly, other one set of conditions a thing may appear brilliant or sweet [in] taste, but under another it may appear dull or taste bitter." (94 - 95)
Sounds a whole lot like current cognitive psych theory to me.
Comments
Krista,
An interesting topic--the role of perception and cognition in language misunderstandings. Consider the role that experience plays in perception, cognition, and misunderstanding. Say for example, you perceive a cat but because of your lack of experience with the animal--say that you have never seen or heard of one--would affect the way that you thought about it (cognition). So you and someone else, who has experiences with cats, might have a communication problem when using language to try to explain what you both perceive and what it means. The same thing happens with the way that words gain meaning. I.A. Richards writes about that topic. If you want to explore that in more detail let me know.
Sorry about any typos.
Posted by: Earnest | January 31, 2003 4:37 PM
Krista & Earnest,
Interesting, interesting topic. I happened by this posting through a search on perception psychology/ cognition and typographical errors.
We are trying to reduce typo errors within our organisation and dispite all our efforts have not been able to do so consistantly or substantially. My theory on the cause of the typo errors was that maybe we were looking at the problem in the wrong manner and the cause was more a psychological one and thus our approach would have to take that into consideration. So my search started....
I have been searching for days now with no real light on the matter. Is the reason for typo errors perceptual or cognitive in nature? Would changing the screen colour or angle help with what an operator saw and thus reduce typo errors?
Posted by: Butterfly | March 29, 2003 10:27 AM