WOK Language Perception Emotion Jim Carey

WOK: Perception Sensation and Interpretation

From Last week: Cultural Perception What did you think of the video Do you perceive the world culturally/geographically? What if this happened in Lukuni? Who does not perceive the world culturally/locally? How can you change this?

WOK Language Perception Emotion Jim Carey

Crime Line up Eye witness testimony Set the scene, bank robbery, you saw the robbers in the car before they put on their masks, this is them, what will you recall in 30 minutes when the police officer interview you

Perception Is an important source of knowledge 3 fundamental problems We may misinterpret what we see We may fail to notice something We may misremember what we have seen Think of an eye witness account Links to last slide

How we distinguish between appearance and reality in everyday life Confirmation by another sense Coherence: it does not fit, i.e I saw a pig flying, Independent Testimony: if 10 people saw something it must be true

Ultimate Reality We have 5 senses Give an example of an animal that has completely different senses that carry out the same function? 3 min What would reality be like if we used our senses differently? 5 minute exercise in class on the animals Sharks in the water Turtles Dogs and smell Elephants and hearing the vibrations in their feet Bats and the sonar/radar

Other Senses Sharks in the water Turtles use magnetic fields Birds use magnetic field to navigate Dogs and smell Elephants and hearing the vibrations in their feet Ants use the position of the sun Bats use sonar to see Lemur tapping on trees to hear

What is really out there Take these examples You burn your hand – where is the pain You drink some coke- where is the taste You see blue in the sky- where is the colour Is the sky blue, is the pain in the fire, is the sweetness in the coke, if we apply the same reasoning the sky is not blue, that is the way we see the world an animal with different sight senses will see the sky differently.

The tree in the forest Is the sky blue? If not what is sound? 10 miutes here, in groups does it make a sound, then feed back a statement with yes or not no sitting on the fence

Crime Scene A police officer comes up to you and asks you what did you see? What did you notice? 1 min to tell the person beside you

Key terms/points Our five senses are an important source of knowledge about the world; but rather than passively reflect reality, they actively structure it. Perception consist of two elements Sensation and interpretation. Looking at visual illusions can help make us aware of the role that interpretation plays in perception If we accept that pain and taste are subjective, we might conclude that colour and sound are also subjective The fallibility of perception is relevant to issues in the real world such as eye-witness testimony in criminal crimes Although perception cannot give us certainty, if the evidence of our senses is consistent with what reason and intuition tell us, it can still provide a good foundation for reliable knowledge