PSYCH211 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Plantar Reflex, Depth Perception, Color Vision
20 Mar 2013
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The function of perception is to allow us to behave sensibly in the world with respect to our survival and our reproductive interests; the function of perception is adaptive behavior rather than knowledge. Different species are sensitive to different kinds of information in the environment; they need and can make use of this information depending upon the adaptive problems that they have to resolve adaptive function. Physical fatigue affects perception e. g. : the steep hill experiment. Our perceptual systems are not designed to see the truth about the world but are designed to help us produce adaptive behaviors. Sense organs have a cost to build them as well as metabolic cost to operate them. Our inability to appreciate the complexity of our mental processes because they seem automatic and inevitable to us. : you know how to use your vision but you don"t know the smallest details about it.
