Perception Teaching Learning Media

12 perception and automatic interpretation of stimuli, but rather it is an active process in which the incoming data are selectively related to the cognitive structure. Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts 1985: 85 state that perception is the way stimuli are selected and grouped by a person so that they can be meaningfully interpreted. In other word, perception is a person’s view of reality. Crow and Crow 1972: 93 state that a percept can be regarded as a meaningful sensation. Perception includes not only the sensitization of the sensory nerve but also the immediate associative mental processes that follow. Crow and Crow 1972:95 add that perception is influenced by an individual’s feelings and attitudes at the time of the perception. For example, if someone is hungry, the smell of frying fish will be pleasant, but if someone is full, it becomes an annoying thing. According to Vernon 1962: 32, perception is never instantaneous. It means that the forming of perception takes time. If people see one object for a very short time, people can not identify what it is. Huffman, Vernoy, and Vernoy 1996: 97 describe that perception refers to the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensory data into useful mental representation of the world. When people look something new, there will be much information coming up in their mind but only selected information will be processed further. According to Huffman et al. 1996:98, perception consists of three basic processes: selection, organization, and interpretation of incoming sensation. It is supported by Gibson et al. 1985:61 say that perception involves receiving the 13 stimuli, organizing the stimuli, and translating or interpreting the organized stimuli so as to influence behavior and form attitudes. Figure 2.1 Perceptual Process The first step in perceptual process is selection. We choose the stimuli to which we will pay attention. Our brain arranges which information is more important and discards the rest of the given information. For example, when someone is joining a noisy class when the teacher is explaining and the others are yelling, she or he has power to select paying attention to the teacher or to the yelling groups. However, she or he has threshold to choose in what situation she or he wants to belong; paying attention to the teacher or being disturbed by the noise. This process is called selective attention. Based on Huffman et al. 2000:108, the selection of the stimuli is influenced by three factors; physiological factors, stimulus factors, and psychological factors. 1. Physiological factors One of the major physiological factors in selection is the presence of the specialized cells in the brain called feature detections or feature analyzers that respond only to certain sensory information. Another physiological factor is habituation. It is the tendency to ignore environmental factors to remain constant.