Perception Definition of Terms

thing, in which a person tries to translate the stimuli that he or she receives. Those responses occur in people’s awareness through their sensory receptors. Then, these responses will be interpreted as meaningful information about the stimuli and so called perceptions. Not every person can have exactly the same perception about particular things, even though the object is the same. It is because people percept something based on their feeling of subjectivity and their experience in the past. It is supported by Mouly 1973:93 who said that two persons looking at the same phenomenon may see very different things. As stated by Wick and Pick 1978: 171-208, there is a connection between perception and experience. They stated that perception and experience are related to one another. This condition shows that perception occurs as our responses in learning or experiencing our environment. According to Gibson J, John M and James H. Donnely 1985:60, perception is a cognitive process that individuals use to interpret and understand the world around them. Perception can be made through the cognitive process in our mind. Sometimes perception may change and the changes depend on the stimulus that someone has experienced. Moskowitz and Orgel 1969:159 said that most perceptions are developed and modified through reinforcement and through feedback from his own behaviour. It means that perception can change based on the new experiences that someone recently get. However, perception is not always formed by someone’s experience. There is another possibility to form perception that is based on others’ opinion. When the stimulus from others’ opinion is so strong, this situation could affect someone’s perception without any experience which comes from him or herself. It means that the perception is created by stimuli received by his or her sensory organs eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and skin and the person does not experience the stimuli directly. From the above explanation, it can be concluded that perception can also be formed by sensations. When someone experiences a stimulus, he may have sensation and perception processes. Those processes are different but it is quite difficult to separate one another. That argument is supported by Bootzin.R, Elizabeth.L and Robert Z 1983:103. They claimed that it is impossible to separate perception from sensation. Sensations themselves are the entering of raw data from the senses into the brain Huffman et al, 1997:79. This thought is also supported by James 1983:724 who stated that sensational and reproductive brain-processes combined, then, are what give us the content of our perceptions. Now it is understood that both experience and sensation can form perception, but the result is different. Perception that is formed by experience is stronger than perception formed by sensation Santoso, 2000:32. It means that the perception which is formed by experience is hard to be changed because someone feels more impressed when heshe experiences it. In this study, perception refers to the response of role play to form some meaningful information to the learning process. The students’ perception on the use of role play technique in learning speaking would be stronger if they experience it by themselves. The students are really involved in the activity whether as actors or audiences. Whereas, it would be weaker if they have the perception by listening to someone’s opinion on the use of role plays in learning speaking. If the students have positive experience they would form positive perception on the use of role play in