The basic characteristics of perception

The basic characteristics of perception mainly include selectivity, integrality, comprehensibility, and constancy. These characteristics together constitute the fundamental cognitive mechanism for humans to process and interpret external information.

1. Selectivity

Perceived selectivity refers to the characteristic of individuals prioritizing specific stimuli in complex environments. The brain filters out irrelevant information through attention mechanisms, such as being able to focus on conversations in noisy restaurants. This characteristic is influenced by needs, experience, and emotions, such as the fact that hungry people are more likely to notice food related cues. Selectivity reflects both bottom-up stimulus driven and top-down goal oriented processes.

2. Wholeness

Perceived wholeness refers to the organization of scattered information into meaningful wholes. The principles of proximity and similarity proposed by Gestalt psychology explain this tendency, such as perceiving discontinuous lines as complete shapes. The brain actively fills in missing parts and automatically completes obscured text while reading. This characteristic enables humans to quickly understand incomplete sensory inputs.

3. comprehensibility

Perception comprehensibility emphasizes the influence of existing knowledge on current perception. When seeing blurry graphics, people from different cultural backgrounds may have different interpretations. Language labels can change the color perception category, and experts can identify professional features that beginners overlook. This characteristic makes perception an active construction process rather than a passive reception.

4. Persistence

Perceived constancy refers to the ability to maintain stable perception when physical stimuli change. Including size constancy, shape constancy, and color constancy, such as distant pedestrians being perceived as normal height even though their retinal imaging is small. This characteristic relies on the brain's automatic correction of environmental cues such as distance and lighting, and is an important mechanism for adapting to the environment.

5. Adaptability

Perceived adaptability is characterized by a weakened response of the sensory system to sustained stimuli. Including adaptation to light and dark, temperature perception, etc., such as gradually increasing visual sensitivity after entering a dark room. This characteristic occurs both at the sensory level and involves central regulation, which can prevent energy waste and may also lead to important signals being ignored. Understanding perceptual features can help optimize information communication design, and in the field of education, learning efficiency can be improved by highlighting key features. In human-computer interaction, users' perceptual habits need to be considered. Maintaining moderate sensory stimulation in daily life can delay the decline of perceptual function, and regular cross modal training such as touching objects with closed eyes can enhance perceptual flexibility. When persistent perceptual distortions or hallucinations occur, it is recommended to seek professional psychological assessment in a timely manner.