Sensory Perceptions Running head: SENSORY PERCEPTIONS

Sensory Perceptions Desmond Byrd Strayer University

Sensory Perceptions Sensory Perceptions

Can you really trust your senses and the interpretation of sensory data to give you an accurate view of the world? I say yes and no. A lot of it depends on the individuals experience. Someone raised in a certain area would have local experiences of sights, smells, and sounds versus someone who is new to the area.

Experiencing a new or similar but not the same sensory information can give you incorrect data. For example a tourist is exploring in another country and comes to a village that has a church bell ringing; the tourist believing the church bell is ringing because it is noon as is customary where that individual grew-up; however the tourist realizes that it is past noon so now the tourist has no idea why its ringing. Consequently another individual who is new to a town next to a military base hears the bugle call at noon and since they worked at a base before that person recognized it as Mess call. A general misconception is when certain commercials, say alcohol; have an individual who is seemingly average then suddenly gets their hands on a bottle of said alcohol and instant success; they have friends, lovers, money, and fame all because they had this bottle of alcohol; clearly that is what your eyes see and your mind processes, but thats not the truth. Another misconception is what is seen versus what is heard; example being my back is killing me, the individual who said doesnt actually mean that theyre being killed by their back, just that its in pain; however the recipient of the message depending if they heard of this hyperbole or not might take them seriously or wonder whats wrong with the individuals back.

Sensory Perceptions There are factors contributing to the accuracy of sensory data; they include episodic memory, perceptual-motor memory, and semantic memory. Episodic memory is like recalling a personal past experience, say seeing the ice cream parlor in your hometown and remembering your first ice-cream cone. Perceptual-motor memory is like muscle memory or reflex; it would be not riding a skateboard in 10 years and getting back in the swing of things in less than an hour. Semantic memory is applying a past memory to a current situation; such as, taking apart and reassembling an M-16 A1 even though you only have done that with an M-14. A personal experience of mine was going to Kings Dominion after I came back to Virginia 15 years ago; I remembered the first time I rode the Grizzly roller coaster when I was a kid.

Memory has a role with regard to the interpretation and evaluation of sensory data. In my opinion memory almost defines the interpretation and evaluation of sensory data. Without ever smelling apple pie the odds of someone identifying it on their first try is low; compared to a person who knows what an apple pie smells like. Without the memory of what information is being received to the brain, it is going to be confusing or inaccurate. Another example would be, the next odd number exercise (1,3,5,7,and ?), we would naturally assume that he next number would be nine; but what if the individual has been drinking which impairs their brain in which case there is no telling what the person sees or hears with this exercise. So to sum it all up whatever effects the mind will affect the senses.

Sensory Perceptions References Memory.ucsf.edu. (2014). Episodic memory | ucsf memory and aging center. [online] Retrieved from: http://memory.ucsf.edu/brain/memory/episodic [Accessed: 24 Jan 2014].

Memory.ucsf.edu. (2014). Semantic memory | ucsf memory and aging center. [online] Retrieved from: http://memory.ucsf.edu/brain/memory/semantic [Accessed: 24 Jan 2014]. Reberlab.psych.northwestern.edu. (2014). Explicit pre-training instruction does not improve implicit perceptual-motor sequence learning reberlab. [online] Retrieved from: http://reberlab.psych.northwestern.edu/2012/11/explicit-pre-training-instruction-does-notimprove-implicit-perceptual-motor-sequence-learning-2/ [Accessed: 24 Jan 2014].