Definition of Perception Perception

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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the researcher will explain some theories which are related to this study. This chapter is divided into two parts, namely the theoretical description and theoretical framework. The first one is the theoretical review, which is used to support the analysis, including theory of perceptions, literature and motivation. Those theories’ functions are thus covered in the theoretical framework.

A. Theoretical Description

The theoretical description includes discussion of three parts: 1 Perceptions, 2 Literature, and 3 Motivation.

1. Perception

This part presents theory of perception, including definition of perception, perceptual process, component of perception, and the factors that affect someone’s perception.

a. Definition of Perception

According to Altman et al. 1985, perception is defined as the way how people select and group the stimuli so that they can interpret the stimuli meaningfully. Following to Borger and Seaborne 1996, perception is an 9 awareness of the environment, through which a person processes incoming sensory data in certain way to arrive at useful impression of this surrounding. Moreover, Kreitner and Kinicki 1992 add that perception is a mental and cognitive process that enables people to interpret and understand the surroundings. Perception is also defined as a process of interpreting messages of our senses to provide order and meaning to the environment Johns, 1996. Another definition, as proposed by Hornby 1995, perception is a way of seeing, understanding, or interpreting something. According to Warga 1983, perception is a meaningful translation from physical energy that we feel or sense. Based on their definitions, it can be concluded that perception is the way how people seeing, interpreting, and understanding something. The same object event could be perceived differently by different person, which leads to different responses. Related to this study, perception is the way how the students feel, think about something, in this case is the study of literature in English education. Perception is considered as the process in which the existence of objects and phenomena is reflected in a person’s awareness and consciousness, as stated by Leontiev 1981. It means that person perceives objects, events, surroundings consciously by the help of sensory organs, such as eyes, tongue, ears, nose and skin. In order to form a perception, there are three steps needed in the process of perception, those are: 1 awareness, or attention to the incoming stimulus, 2 recognition and interpretation of incoming stimuli into some messages, and 3 translating or deciding on the appropriate action or behavior in response to the 10 message. This process will influence how people interact with and adjust their environment.

b. Perceptual Process