HUMAN PERCEPTION

WHAT IS PERCEPTION?
MEANING 1:(n.) the act or process of becoming aware using the senses.

EXAMPLE SENTENCES:

His perception of the weather increased as they climbed the mountain.

The cruel childhood experiences contributed in forming his distorted perception
of humanity.

MEANING 2: (n.) the result or action of becoming aware.

EXAMPLE SENTENCES:

The unique perception he gained during the internship was priceless.

You have changed my perception of a media person.
MEANING 3:(n.) the capacity to be or to be intuitive and insightful.

EXAMPLE SENTENCES:

Her level of perception allowed her to see the otherwise carefully hidden
sadness in them.

His perception of observing the minute details is simply outstanding.

VISUAL PERCEPTION

Visual perception is a function of our eyes and brain. We see images as a

whole rather then in parts. However, images can be broken down into their
visual elements: line, shape, texture, and color. These elements are to images
as grammar is to language. Together they allow our eyes to see images and our
brain to recognize them. In this section, we will talk about each of these
elements except color, because color perception is a big subject and deserves a
section of it own. Therefore we will talk about color perception in the next
section. Here we are concerned with line, shape and form, and texture.

Line
A line is the path made by a pointed instrument, such as a pen, a crayon, or a
stick. A line implies action because work needs to be done to make it.
Moreover, the impression of movement suggests sequence, direction, or force.
In other words, a line can be seen as a distinct series of points.
Line is believed to be the most expressive of the visual elements because of
several reasons. First, it outlines things and the outlines are key to their identity.
Most of the time, we recognize objects or images only from their outlines.
Second, line is important because it is a primary element in writing and
drawing, and because writing and drawing are universal. Third, unlike texture,
shape and form, line is unambiguous. We know exactly when it starts and ends.
Finally, line leads our eyes by suggesting direction and movement.

Line has been used a lot in art work. Even though most of the
art we see uses line only to form shapes, some artists allow
line to call attention for itself in the art piece

Shape
Shape is related to line. Closed lines become the boundaries of shapes. The shapes
that artists create are inspired by many different sources, such as nature and manmade objects. Like with lines, there are many ways of categorizing shapes. We can
use their dimensions, for example, distinguishing between two-dimensional shape
and three-dimensional shape. Or we can use their style (realism, abstraction, etc), or
their origin (organic or geometric)to classify them .

Shape, like line, has been used a lot by artists. Sometimes, shape is used by itself to
create art works. For example, a work by Theo van Doesburg,Composition: The
Cardplayersconsists only of geometric shapes. Surprisingly, these shapes are used to
represent two men playing cards.

Texture
Texture is an element of art that refers to the way things feel, or look
as though they might feel, if touched. For example, sandpaper looks
and feels rough; a cotton ball looks and feels soft. The connection
between visual and tactile sensation is very well developed.

WHY DO WE SEE TEXTURE?

We see texture because of the light-absorbing and light-reflecting
qualities of materials. These qualities are together represented by
light and dark patterns. The light and dark patterns give us the
appearance of texture. Like the other elements discussed above,
texture has been used a lot in art work.

COLOR PERCEPTION

Our sensations of colour are within us

and colour cannot exist unless there is an observer to perceive them.
Colour does not exist even in the chain of events between the retinal
receptors and the visual cortex, but only when the information is finally
interpreted in the consciousness of the observers (Wright, 1963, p. 20).

Nature of color
What we perceive as color is primarily the wavelength the light
stimulation. The shortest viewable wavelength (about 380 nm) is what we
see as blue and the longest wavelength (about 760 nm) is what we see as
red. The other wavelengths that fall between them are what we see as
other colors, as shown in the figure below. However, color perception is
very subjective. We do not have a way of proving that two different people
perceive the same color, yet we refer to 760-nm wavelength asREDand
380-nm wavelength asBLUE.

We see color in the objects around us because they absorb most of the
wavelengths from the sun, called white light; and they reflect only a
particular wavelength into our eyes.

The dimensions of color

There are three psychological dimensions of color: Hue, Brightness, and
Saturation. Hue is what we usually refer to as color, therefore, most people
use the two words interchangeably. We recognize a change in hue as color
change. The physical dimension of hue is wavelength. Brightness is
another psychological dimension that refers to the intensity of the
stimulus. The more intense the light, the brighter that object
appears.Saturation is related to the physical dimension of spectral purity.
It tells us the amount of hue that we see in an object. In other words, it
refers to how complex the light wave is. If the light is simple (for example,
a sine wave light), it is pure and therefore appears to be very saturated.

Examples of effects of hue, brightness, and saturation are shown below: