Perception and Its Educational Significance
Every individual has five sense organs. These organs are also called as “the window of the soul” or ‘gateway of knowledge’. It is through them that we acquire knowledge about the world. The functioning of the five senses is called sensing or sensation.
In perception the sensation comes to have a meaning. It is the next response of the organism following a sensation, which comes first and later on changes into a perception.
Robert S. Woodworth, considers that in perception, the chain of events is: stimulus response of the sense-organ and sensory nerve, first cortical response, which is sensation, second cortical response which is perception.
According to Drever & Collins - “Perception is the immediate apprehension of an object or situation affecting any of the sense by way of sensation. It is the most elementary form of cognition and indeed of experience.”
Features of Perception:
- Meaningful sensations are called perceptions.
- It can be a combination of various sensations.
- In perception our sensory data is enriched. We perceive more than what is actually there.
- When a particular object is represented by another object it brings about our element of imagination in our mind.
- When we see a particular object we also come to have a knowledge of related or connected objects. Thus we come to have a complete perception.
Max Wertheimer - Laws of Perception:
Max Wertheimer on the basis of his laws of perception established that there is some relationship between our perception and the external world, specially in the visual field. He formulated the following laws:-
- Law of Similarity.
- Law of Proximity.
- Law of Closure.
- Law of Good Communication.
- Law of Common Movement.
Law of Similarity:
If there are various objects in our field, those objects which have similar color or shape can be grouped together. They have a distinct group of their own because they are similar and different in shape. If we group some circles and squares as two distinct groups they will appear as similar and different due to the above law.
Law of Proximity:
Proximity means nearness. Objects of the same size which are nearer to one another form a group in our visual perception. It is due to proximity with each other.
Law of Closure:
Our mind sees things and words as a whole. It overlooks minor defects in perception. It is mainly due to our previous experiences or mental set-up. If a word is wrongly printed we ignore the mistake and read it correctly. This is due to the reason that in our mental set-up we have a correct spelling and our mind generally ignores the wrong spelling.
Educational Significance of Perception:
- Both perception is based on our sense organs.
- The teacher should plan for the proper training of the sense organs of the child. The Montessori Method is one of the best methods of developing these organs.
- Proper opportunities should be provided to the child in the school to use their sense organs.
- The teacher should always keep in view that children are naturally active hence sense training should always be provided through activity methods.
- The teacher should encourage the children to keep an observation exercise book. They may note down their observations in this book. The details entered by them may be discussed after the activity is over. Important facts to be observed which have been ignored by children may be pointed out by the teacher.
- He should locate those children who have a defective vision and may assign them some other activity according to their limitations.
- We should always encourage a very close observation by children. It will develop the power of perception as well.
