Thanks for asking!
I've prepared a listing of sources which discuss, or compare and
contrast, the concepts of attention and perception. I've excerpted
relevant quotations citing perception and attention from the
disciplines of philosophy, psychology and physiology. The linked, full
length documents provide greater detail and analysis.
The words affection and perception both come to us from Latin.
Perception from perceptus, past participle of percepere: to perceive,
per + capere: to seize. Attention from attendus, past participle of
attendere: to heed.
Perception is the ability to recognize and interpret directly through
the senses or the intellect. Attention is the capability of
concentration of the mental powers upon an object; a close or careful
observing or listening.
Dictionary.com - Perception
The American HeritageŽ Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=perception
Dictionary.com - Attention
The American HeritageŽ Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=attention
IN PHILOSOPHY...
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Perceptions: Thomas Reid (1710-1796, Scotland)
"Sensations are the feelings that are the immediate mental causal
consequences of the influence of objects on us. Sensations are always
associated with a particular organ of sense; they are always
distinctly of, for instance, touch or vision. Conceptions, on the
other hand, are ways of being aware of objects. To conceive of an
object is to be aware of that object as the bearer of some particular
property. One might conceive of an apple as red or as hard or as both
red and hard. Further, one could conceive of an object -- and thus be
directly aware of that object -- as possessing a particular relational
property: to conceive of an object as having a particular apparent
magnitude, for instance, is to be aware of the object itself as
possessing the property of appearing a certain way from a certain
location. Perceptions are a species of conception. To perceive an
object is to be aware of it in a particular way, as the possessor of a
particular quality, and, at the same time, to be convinced that the
object exists and is as you conceive it to be. Objects, then, act on
our bodies and cause us to have sensations -- a feeling of coldness, a
visual image of color. These sensations, in turn, lead us -- Reid
sometimes says "suggest to us" -- to conceptions of their causes; we
become aware of the causes of our sensations as possessing various
qualities. Sometimes, although not always, these conceptions are
accompanied by a conviction in their accuracy, and when they are, they
are called "perceptions"."
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2003 Edition),
Yaffe, Gideon, "Thomas Reid"
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2003/entries/reid/
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Perception
"In philosophy, "perception" is defined as the complex method of
obtaining information about our surrounding world, specifically
through our senses, and apprehending this information as beliefs. The
main philosophical problem with this notion of perception is that we
should not accept our perceptions as being reliable, since (1) it is
possible for us to misperceive objects in the world, (2) our senses
are susceptible to illusions (e.g. hallucinations), and (3) it is
unclear how much epistemological value perceptions have, or how much
belief, if any, should be rooted in that which we perceive."
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/percept.htm
Philosophy of the Mind - Perception
"We can perceive what's going on in our bodies; for example, we can
sense where our limbs are, whether we're sitting or standing; we can
also sense whether we are hungry, or tired, and so forth. Call that
internal perception, or if you want an impressive long word, it's
proprioception. We can also perceive the world outside our bodies;
using the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste, we
discover the colors, sounds, textures, and so forth, of the world.
Call that sense-perception, or if you want the word corresponding to
"proprioception," it is exteroception. So internal perception is the
feeling of what's going on in our own bodies, while sense-perception
is the perception, using the senses, of the objects and qualities of
the world at large.
Wikipedia - Perception
Philosophy of the Mind - Philosophy of Perception
Larry Sanger, Professor of Philosophy, Ohio State University
Wikipedia.com
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_perception
IN PSYCHOLOGY...
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Sensation and Perception
"As adaptive creatures, we humans need to know what is happening in
the world around us. Sensation tells us there are objects in the world
outside ourselves; perception tells us what and where they are and
what they are doing. Together, our sensations and perceptions link our
brains to the world and allow us to form mental representations of
reality."
National Institute of Mental Health
Sensation and Perception
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/baschap3.cfm#sensat
Attention
"Not everything that stimulates our sensory receptors is transformed
into a mental representation. Rather, we selectively attend to some
objects and events and ignore others. If we could not select, we would
be automatons reduced to responding to whatever stimulus happened to
be the strongest at any moment. Our behavior would be influenced
solely by whatever thought, memory, or impulse was passing through our
minds, and we would have no goal-directed control over our actions.
Attention, then, is an important cognitive key to planned, adaptive
behavior."
National Institute of Mental Health
Attention
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/baschap3.cfm#attent
Concept of Attention - A Brief History
"Attention is a major topic of study in psychology and is closely
related to the subject of consciousness which was the principal focus
of the early psychologists such as Wilhelm Wundt and William James.
In 1958, Broadbent proposed his filter theory which specified that we
could only attend to one input at a time. The theory suggested that
stimuli can be filtered based upon physical attributes, prior to full
processing by the perceptual system. Filter theory proposed that
attention was a limited capacity channel that determined the serial
processing of the perceptual system."
TIP - Concepts
http://tip.psychology.org/attend.html
Integrating Perceptual Organization and Attention
"It is proposed that attention and perception interact in an iterative
process wherein constraints imposed both by the visual stimulus and an
observer's cognitive set determine the "objects" to which attention is
allocated. Thus, visual attention is object based precisely because it
is intricately involved in perceptual organization, and not because it
selects the output of perceptual organization, as is generally
claimed."
Integrating Perceptual Organization and Attention:
A New Model for Object-Based Attention, by Jerzy P. Jarmasz
http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:ISfs1eyLZroC:hfac.gmu.edu/~cogsci/final_ind_files/Jarmasz.pdf+metaphysics+attention+perception&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
IN PHYSIOLOGY:
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The Physiology of Perception
"The brain transforms sensory messages into conscious perceptions
almost instantly Chaotic, collective activity involving millions of
neurons seems essential for such rapid recognition.
When a person glimpses the face of a famous actor, sniffs a favorite
food or hears the voice of a friend, recognition is instant. Within a
fraction of a second after the eyes, nose, ears, tongue or skin is
stimulated, one knows the object is familiar and whether it is
desirable or dangerous. How does such recognition, which psychologists
call preattentive perception, happen so accurately and quickly, even
when the stimuli are complex and the context in which they arise
varies?
Much is known about the way the cerebral cortex, the outer rind of the
brain, initially analyzes sensory messages. Yet investigations are
only now beginning to suggest how the brain moves beyond the mere
extraction of features-how it combines sensory messages with past
experience and with expectation to identify both the stimulus and its
particular meaning to the individual."
The Physiology of Perception, by Walter J. Freeman
From: February 1991 Scientific American, Vol 264, (2) Pgs. 78-85.
http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/FLM/MS/Physio.Percept.html
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Google Search Terms
metaphysics attention perception
attention OR perception philosophy OR philosophers
attention OR perception psychology OR psychologists
It's been a particular pleasure to locate and sift through the broad
variety of information available on cognition, perception and
attention. I hope the resources I've chosen closely match your
requirements. Should you have any questions about the material or
links provided, please, feel free to ask.
--larre |
