Reasons for believing in the accuracy or inaccuracy of sensory information
Senses help people to comprehend and respond to the changes in the environment in which they are placed. Sensory perceptions entail the identification and synthesis of sensory information. This often results in a given response depending on the kind of information that is sensed by an individual. Perception is an active concept.
It entails the processing of information from the human senses about the stimuli (Bernstein, 2011). This paper explores how sensory perceptions work. The paper brings out examples of how the sensory data are processed, as well as the impact of nurture and nature about the complete synthesis of sensory data.
According to Bernstein (2011), the accuracy or inaccuracy of the sensory information is dependent on the functionality of the human senses. People believe in the accuracy of sensory information by using several sense organs. Several examples have been given on why there is a belief in sensory information. The first reason is the utilization of the sense of sight, where accurate information about the world is presented.
It is easy to see people during the day doing something; it is easy to identify them and what they are doing. The other reason to believe in sensory information is that people respond rapidly to certain forms of stimuli. For instance, touching a hot object elicits a rapid response from a person because the information is sent to the brain via the nerves.
Therefore, a person will quickly remove the hand from the hot object. The accuracy of sensory information is trusted by people; for example, smelling smoke denotes the presence of a fire and causes a person to panic (Kirby & Goodpaster, 1995).
On the other hand, several reasons have been brought forward to back the inaccuracy of sensory information. A human mind tends to store past information that is later re-synthesized according to what a person is experiencing. This means that experience can make a person interpret a given situation in the wrong way.
Environmental influences result in the distortion of data interpretation by the body organs, resulting in inaccurate assumptions. For example, a person may look around and see nobody. This may make the person engage in a socially unacceptable act. However, there could be someone watching from a distant. Human beings do not often interpret sensory information in the correct way, irrespective of the sensory organ involved. This implies that people ought not to always rely on sensory data (Weissman, 2007).
Factors contributing to the accuracy of sensory data
Several factors have been brought forward to aid in justifying the accuracy of sensory data. Constancy and experience in a critical factor in explaining the accuracy of sensory information. The experience of a person plays a substantive role in determining the level of accuracy of sensory data. The continued instilling of certain skills in a person, for instance, a person who has grown up being taught how to perceive and interpret sounds often becomes an expert in that task (Kirby & Goodpaster, 1995).
Sensory perception is enhanced by experience, which raises the level of accuracy of sensory information. In line with the experience is the age of a person. An adult has more developed senses than a young person or an infant. From biological research, it is argued that brain cells determine sensory perceptions. When sensory cells in the brain are more developed as with the adults, there is a higher propensity to rightly interpret and perceive the changes in the environment. This results in accurate sensory data.
The other thing that enhances the accuracy of sensory information is the longevity of exposure to a given stimulus. If a person perceives stimuli for a longer period, he or she is more likely to correctly perceive the sensory information. The longer a person gets exposed to a given stimulus, the more the sensory receptors of a person are positively inclined towards the stimuli. The receptors become more accurate in terms or receiving and interpreting the stimuli (Bernstein, 2011).
The roles of “nature” and “nurture” about the interpretation and evaluation of sensory data
There has been an extensive debate on the role of nurture and nature in the synthesis and evaluation of sensory information. Both scientists and psychologists agree that all stimuli that are synthesized into sensory information emanate from nature. Therefore, the nature that a person has been raised in determines how the sensory data is processed and evaluated. For instance, a person who has been raised in an industrial setting adapts to the industrial noise to the extent that the sensory nerves of that person ignore the noise.
These works are the opposite of a person who is newly introduced in the industrial setting. For such a person, the sensory nerves are highly responsive to the noise and will perceive and evaluate the noise; that is, the stimuli. Both people and animals shape the way they receive, perceive, and interpret the changes in their environment.
People perceive stimuli differently through the act of nurturance. The expectations and beliefs that have been nurtured in a person affect the way the sensory receptors adopt and interpret stimuli, thereby affecting the resulting data (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010).
References
Bernstein, W. M. (2011). A basic theory of neuropsychoanalysis. London: Karnac.
Kirby, G. R., & Goodpaster, J. R. (1995). Thinking. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Shaffer, D. R., & Kipp, K. (2010). Developmental psychology: Childhood and adolescence. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Weissman, D. (2007). Styles of thought: Interpretation, inquiry, and imagination. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.