Richard Gregory Suggests That Perception is a Process of "Hypothesis Testing". Critically Evaluate This Claim.

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Richard Gregory Suggests That Perception is a Process of “Hypothesis Testing”. Critically Evaluate This Claim.  

Roth (1986) defines perception as “the means by which information is acquired through the sense organs and transformed into experiences of objects, events, sounds and taste.”

The constructivist psychologist, Richard Gregory (1998) describes such perceptions to be “like the predictive hypotheses of science”. His theory of “hypothesis testing” suggests that data from the retinal image interacts with previous appropriate knowledge, creating ‘psychological data’, whereby the hypotheses try and make sense of it all. Visual illusions occur when hypotheses are applied to the illusionary medium in the same way they would visually be applied to real life settings. However, because of the ‘unnatural’ organisation of cues in the illusionary medium, the hypothesis that is formed is inappropriate which results in an illusion.   I would  move this para down.

An example of such an illusion is provided by Goldstein (1999). When a person hypothesizes that a shadowy object in a dark corner across the room is a table, however, closer inspection reveals that this hypothesis is incorrect as the table is actually a toy drum. Goldstein (1999) this process is conscious, as one is aware of the hypotheses that eventually lead to the perception of the drum. However, not all hypothesis testing occurs at a conscious level. Külpe (1904) puts forward the idea of ‘mental operations’ occurring during perceptual processes. He presented displays of different colours and told participants to concentrate on a certain dimension of the display, like the positioning of the letters. When Külpe asked his participants to describe a different aspect of the display, like the colour of a certain letter, they could not. Külpe concludes that despite all of the information from the presented display reaching the participants eye, a careful selection process comes about between the ‘reception’ of this information and the participant’s perception, resulting in only some of the information being perceived and remembered. (Cited in Goldstein 1999). This implies that it is the observer that contributes to such a process rather than perception depending wholly on the properties of the stimulus.      

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Gregory’s hypothesis theory can also be explained by an experiment carried out by Palmer (1975). He presented a pictorial scene to participants (e.g. a kitchen scene), followed by a brief presentation of a picture of an object. It was found that the probability of identifying an object correctly was highest when the object was relevant to the context (e.g. a loaf), intermediate when no context was given (i.e. no picture was shown before the object picture) and lowest when the object was irrelevant to the picture (e.g. a drum). (Cited in Eysenck & Keane 2000). Such findings cannot be ...

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