Logan Kovach

Perception and Reality

Our world is, well, the most diverse world that we know; it's full of hundreds of different
cultures and ethnicities, of races and countries, languages and politics; every single part of the
world is, at least minutely, different from the other. But what causes these differentiations? One
key factor is the perception of reality, or how an individual sees the world. This perception
differs from person to person, as two people can look at the same colour and see two different
colours. Look around you; you are constantly taking in information, through tons of different
factors, such as pain and hunger, or sound and sight. Our brain interacts with many different
neurological functions in our body in order to perceive reality...if reality is even real.
One of the most basic and rudimentary ways our body perceives reality is through the
five senses. First, let us look at the light spectrum; there are many different types of light
(gamma, x-ray, ultraviolet, etc.), but we can only perceive a tiny section of visible light, and
within that sub-spectrum of visible, there are hundreds of thousands of variations of the colours
we see. Lets say the same lightwave (579 [nanometers]) is reaching the womans and man's
eyes. However, due to differences in their cone cells, they may experience different colors. The
woman might say I see a bright green color while the man might say I see a green color tinted
with blue (Cyckowski and Grobstein, What does reality look like?). This difference in colour
hues is another way reality by perception is managed by the brain. Another example of sensory
perception of reality by the brain is with taste; people not only taste foods differently, but their
tastebuds are different. Within the boundaries of tasting, there are three kinds of people: nontasters, tasters, and supertasters. Each one of these people taste foods to a different intensity. If
youre a non-taster, your reality of food is bland and boring, but if youre a supertaster, your

reality of food is exciting and oversensitive. The sensory taste buds on your tongue interact with
your brain and create a reality of tasting, one that is infinitely varied.
But through the five senses is not the only way we can perceive reality. There is another
factor in play; this factor allows us to stay balanced, to sense where our body is, and know how
our body is positioned. Its how we tell time, sense gravity, understand temperature, feel pain, or
have hunger. These are multiple factors of different names, but do the same thing. These are our
non-traditional senses, such as equilibrioception, thermoception, proprioception, and
nociception, just to name a few. But even non-traditional senses differs from person-to-person,
once again, giving an specific sense of reality to each individual. The specific differences in
proprioception is what creates things like car sickness and space sickness, which some people are
heavily affected by, and others have never experienced it. Another nonsensory factor in the
perception of reality lies within the consciousness of a person. One article says Think of your
consciousness as a net. When you cast a small net, you capture a small amount of information.
When you cast a wider net, you capture a wider amount of information. There is an infinite
intelligence surrounding us; the wider our perception, the more information we can understand
(McCrae, The Scientific Reason Your Perception Creates Your Reality). How we think affects
our individual views and perceptions of reality. For example, if you look at a situation from a
negative point of view, then your perception of reality and the world is a dreary and negative
one, while if you have a positive outlook, your reality is also more happy and positive. Lastly,
ones own imagination affects their perception of reality. When we look out and see things, its
not all seeing is believing. Whats going on is your imagination hard at work, thinking up
crazy scenarios and ideas, linking things to your memory and building pictures in your head. The
activity of your imagination changes the reality that surrounds you. Beyond these slightly

ambiguous concepts, there are many laws that create perceptions in reality. These are the Gestalt
Laws, and they include the law of closure, which is when we see something incomplete, we tend
to fill in the gaps; the law of similarity, which states we tend to group similar items together; the
law of proximity, in which we perceive things that are close together as belonging together; the
law of symmetry, in which we pick out the symmetry in objects; the law of continuity, where
When we can see a line, for example, as continuing through another line, rather than stopping
and starting, we will do so, as in this example, which we see as composed of two lines, not as a
combination of two angles (Boeree, Perception and Interaction); and the most important law,
the law of pragnanz, in which we are driven to perceive things as good as gestalt as possible.
But all of this is dependent on the idea that reality actually exists. Since it is impossible to
perceive and research reality outside of the human brain, and we learned that reality is different
to every person, do we actually know what reality is, or that it actually exists? So, is reality a
world all around us, filled to the brim with things to sense and perceive, or just a construct of the
brain? If you look at optical illusions, you see still images moving or same-size objects look to
be differently sized. Can we believe what we perceive? Is seeing really believing? How do we
know that you, reader, are not the only person in the known universe, and everything around is
crafted to be real by your brain? The funny thing is, you dont know. It is impossible to tell if that
is true or if it isnt. That ideology is called Solipsism, and it is a valid theory when it comes to
reality. But since there is no way, as of right now, to prove or disprove it, it sits upon the shelf of
plausible theories, collecting dust. Another theory pertaining to our realities is the Simulation
hypothesis, a theory that reality is not real in the sense that it is virtual, a computer simulation
of our universe and race by some other being. Once again, a theory that can neither be disproven

or proven. I shall leave you with some food for thought: if we do not know that reality is actually
there, why do we insist that it is, or at least keep believing it exists?
Reality is a strange, undefinable thing that surrounds each and every one of us. Or maybe
just one of us. We perceive this reality by three major factors interacting with your brain, the five
senses of touch, taste, sound, smell, and sight, then there is the non-traditional senses of heat,
pain, hunger, and balance, the thing that keeps up upright and tells us when it is hot or cold
outside, and the Gestalt Laws, the set of natural psychological laws that state how we tend to
perceive the reality around us. All these factors mingle together inside each person in a different
way, creating innumerable amounts of reality that is perceived, and each reality is correct to that
person...if there is even more than one reality.

Works Cited
Cyckowski, Laura, and Paul Grobstein. "What does reality look like?" Serendip
Studio. Serendip, 8 July 2009. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
<http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/reality/looklike>.
McCrae, James. "The Scientific Reason Your Perception Creates Your Reality."
The Mind Unleashed. The Mind Unleashed, Inc., 25 Jan. 2015. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
<http://themindunleashed.org/2015/01/scientific-reason-perception-creates-reality.html>.
Grobstein, Paul, and Lusiana Taveras. "The Brain's Constructions and
Deconstructions of 'Reality.'" Serendip Studio. Serendip, n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
<http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/2604>.
Sodha, Amit. "Perception Vs Reality." Unlimited Choice. Unlimited Choice, 22
Mar. 2006. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
<http://www.unlimitedchoice.org/blog/meditations/perception-vs-reality/>.
Boeree, C. George, Dr. "Perception and Interaction." General Psychology. C.
George Boeree, n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
<http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/genpsyperception.html>.