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Psychology vocabulary · Cognition and Perception

Perception

Meaning in psychology, with examples

/pəˈsepʃən/nounCore term

In psychology, perception means: The process by which the brain organises and interprets information from the senses, so that we can recognise objects, sounds, faces and movement.

In Turkish: algı, algılama

How it is used

Used in cognitive psychology and neuroscience (visual perception, depth perception) and, more loosely, in social psychology for how people see each other and events (self-perception, risk perception). Sensation is the raw input; perception is its interpretation.

Example sentences

  1. Visual perception depends on what we expect to see as well as on the image itself.

  2. People with this condition often have a distorted perception of their own body size.

Common collocations

  • visual perception
  • depth perception
  • self-perception
  • risk perception
  • cognitionThe mental processes we use to gain and use knowledge, such as thinking, remembering, paying attention, understanding language and solving problems.
  • attentionThe ability to focus mental resources on some information while ignoring the rest, for example following one conversation in a noisy room.
  • stimulusAnything in the environment or inside the body that can be detected and can trigger a response, such as a sound, an image, a smell or a touch.
  • schemaA mental framework built from past experience that organises knowledge about something and guides how new information is noticed, interpreted and remembered.

More terms: Cognition and Perception

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