is perception innate?

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Paul Gilbert

Is Perception Innate?

There has been an on going argument between psychologists to answer the question, “Is Perception innate?” Many studies have been done to try to answer this question; however no conclusion has yet been reached. This essay will look at a few of these studies and argue how it shows perception is or is not innate. I should then be able to come to a conclusion based upon these studies.

Gilling and Brightwell (1982) supports the idea that perception is learned. Gilling and Brightwell replicated an earlier study by Stratton where a student wore inverted goggles for a period of seven days. To start with she struggled to get to grips with it and said it was very strange, she had difficulty making a drink and other simple tasks like that. However towards the end of the seven day period she could do normal things such as ride a bike, run and climb stairs.

This study could suggest that the mind has learned to perceive the world from a different angle; Stratton said in his study that after the seventh day he found he forgot he was wearing the goggles. Here his mind perceives the upside down as normality; this suggests that perception is learned.

However both Gilling and Brightwell and Stratton’s studies can be said as not being able to prove perception is not innate. It can be argued that what is changing in this case is not the way we perceive things but instead the way in which we move about, for example if our eyes are telling us to go right then our body may just know that right means left now, and this is nothing to do with the way in which we perceive things.

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However on the other hand if perception was completely innate we would not be able to adjust to the distorted conditions presented to us, so this supports the theory that perception is learned.

This study however cannot be generalised to the whole population as Gilling and Brightwell only used one participant, and to find out if this is a trend to all humans a larger group should be used.

On the other side of the argument Gibson and Walk (1960) argue that perception is indeed innate. Their study involved a “visual cliff,” this is a table one half with a ...

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