What is Perception & how does it relate to language?
Perception is many things to us. It is the here and now of our lives--the moment to moment awareness of our environment. It is the present, from which memories of the past and thoughts of the future are created by the brain. It is our reality!
It is what happens to stimuli from the environment (eg.,kinetic or electro-magnetic energy) after they have been transduced into electro-chemical impulses within the brain.
It is how they are organized by the Brain to give us any, if not the best chance of recognizing stimuli, particularly complex ones, such as speech or Sign Language.
And still there is more. Look at the figure on the next slide. Can you see the lines clearly? For some of us, it may take a pair of glasses to achieve that crisp clarity, but with them we all can probably see them clearly.
Seeing the lines is a matter of transduction, which we have been discussing at length. But now if I asked you to describe what you are seeing (or better yet to draw and color it), some difficulties might become apparent.
Is there a problem and if so, what is it?