Main branches of psychology

A person perceives the world around him not chaotically , but trying to systematize individual phenomena and objects, formulate his own idea about them, determine how useful or dangerous what he saw or heard can be, used for a specific purpose.

In psychology, this is called perception , this is the name of the reflection in the human consciousness of surrounding objects and phenomena.

This is an active process that uses not only the senses, but also motor functions : hand position, eye movement, movement in space to improve perception.

What are kinesthetic feelings and sensations? Find out about this from our article.

Examples of perception

A person can perceive the world around him almost endlessly .

For example, a child who, immediately after birth, is only in a certain room or crib, and perceives the world around him within the confines of the crib, gradually exploring it and getting a complete picture of it.

Then the boundaries of its habitat expand, and the amount of information received increases . A person reads books, newspapers, watches movies and TV shows. Psychologists say that with proper vital activity, the process of self-improvement can last a lifetime.

Initially, perception is formed on the basis of certain sensations: touch, smell, visual contours of an object, its color. Then all this adds up to a certain idea of ​​the phenomenon and the object, which is called perception.

In psychology, the process of human perception has 4 levels:

• moment of detection , our senses receive a certain signal,
• discrimination , a person determines the nature of this signal,
• identification , an attempt to determine what it is like,
• identification , the received signal belongs to one category or another.

There are several categories of perception:

• visual , a visible image of a phenomenon or object is created,
• auditory , the structure and volume of possible sounds is determined,
• perception through touch ,
• the taste sensation can also model the image.

Perception can also be voluntary or involuntary . For example, a child plays with a toy, imitating the movement of a truck, and does this quite consciously with a set goal.

Involuntary perception can be caused by blows of a special hammer under the kneecap at an appointment with a neurologist.

There are also false, erroneous types, illusions and hallucinations. But these are already elements of pathology.

The emergence of the psychology of individual differences

Within the framework of psychology, traditionally, the following categories are most often used to designate the characteristics of people:

• Individual differences and characteristics,
• Psychological characteristics,
• Individual psychological characteristics,
• Typological (individual typological) features.

One of the contradictions in the process of formulating each concept is represented by the fact that it is difficult to determine the component composition of the sphere that each of them is intended to define. The difficulty is associated, first of all, with the fact that in most situations not only individual characteristics, but also their groups can be attributed to both one and another concept. All this prevents the determination of the uniqueness of a particular concept.

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Note 1

Interest in individuality appeared already in the very first works on psychology. In the treatise “Ethical Characters”, Aristotle’s student Theophrastus sketched lively and apt descriptions of various types of people.

In the works of Galen and Hippocrates, an attempt was made to form the first typology of temperament through the predominance of certain juices in the body. Observations of different characters and moral attitudes of people were characteristic of the works of Locke, Montaigne, Diderot and other thinkers of that time.

The systematic study of individual differences differs from previously widespread ideas about individual differences, which were formed during the course of adaptation to everyday life. It appears in psychology relatively recently.

The basis of the scientific approach to the problem of individuality was laid by Vives, Huarte, and Helvetius. However, objective research into differences between people has only occurred through experimental research on them.

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Wundt, for example, did not have works focused on identifying variability, but his first students (Kraepelin, Cattell) were already forming an attitude towards reorienting experiment in this direction. Thus, a new sphere of psychological science is emerging - differential psychology. Its development was influenced by the demands of pedagogical, medical and industrial practice.

What is it not?

Separately, a person’s sensations are not perceptions ; only a complex of these sensations, together with their analysis, can form in the individual’s mind an idea of ​​an object or the environment in general.

For example, when going outside, a person does not just perceive smells, sounds or outlines of buildings. He immediately evaluates the distance to this or that house, the safety of the building, its size and overall usefulness: a store in the building will be perceived differently from a sewing workshop.

The organs of hearing, vision and touch can be used to varying degrees, but the sensations they receive must complement each other .

Individual smell, color, touch of something is not considered perception in psychology, these are only its fragments.

Basic properties

Constancy

One of the important properties of perception is contrast. For the first time, as a certain property of perception, constancy was considered by scientists Martius and Wundt in 1889 .

Constancy of perception, the ability of a person to perceive objects in their constant size or color, despite their different distances or illumination.

A classic example of such awareness of the environment can be a car of a particular brand. We can see it at arm's length or several tens of meters away.

The further the car is from us, the smaller it will be in size. But only visually. In any case, we will perceive this driving vehicle to be exactly the size that we see close up, that is, in real parameters.

A white car or house wall will look much darker in the evening or at night, but this does not change our perception of color .

A wall or a car will still remain objectively white for us.

If this property of perception did not exist, a person would have to constantly change his behavior in relation to certain objects . After all, people walking far along the road will seem like gnomes, and at home, like blocks from children's toys, but this, of course, does not happen.

It is curious that a person’s ability to constant perception is formed in the process of gaining life experience , and is not acquired from birth.

Cases are described when people who grew up in a dense forest, when they first came to the plain, initially perceived distant objects as small.

And people who regained their sight only after surgery tried to jump out of a ward window somewhere on the fifth floor, without really assessing the distance . The objects below also seemed simply small to them.

However, a person quickly stops making such mistakes. If the body did not perceive objects as constant in size at different distances, a change in visual dimensions would not allow us to correctly navigate in space.

Objectivity

This property of perception helps people and most animals perceive their surroundings not as a chaotic set of sensations, but as the presence of certain objects .

It, too, is not initially developed in living beings, but comes in the process of the child’s development, along with the gradual knowledge of the world around him.

I.M. Sechenov determined that this process is activated during direct contact of the child with some object. Without movement and human activity in general, the objective perception of the world would be very poor.

, motor skills play an important role in the development of the objectivity of human perception :

• movement of the hands, especially the fingers,
• eye movement to determine the contours of an object,
• head movement and other movements.

However, the ability to perceive the environment in this way is partly biologically determined. This can be seen in the behavior of baby animals that are born already active.

For example, guinea pigs immediately perceive the image of a mother, a drinking bowl or a feeder. But chicks of sparrows or pigeons have very poor orientation and actually perceive surrounding objects only after a certain time after birth.

It is curious that in the first days, dog puppies are very poorly oriented.

But then their objective perception actively develops and becomes much more meaningful than that of guinea pigs.

Apparently, because they have to gradually acquire , developing not only the senses, but also thinking.

Integrity

Another characteristic feature of our psyche. A certain object, phenomenon or image is perceived as something whole, and not scattered .

More clearly, when we see the nose, mouth and ears on the human body, we do not perceive them separately, as something functioning independently.

In the same way, a house is not considered a set of separately located boards, bricks, etc. Here, previous experience gained in life is also of great importance .

For example, seeing a stranger standing sideways to us, we notice only one of his hands if the second is not extended forward. But the image of a person is already preserved in the consciousness, as a creature with two hands, ears, etc. We, as it were, complete the complete image without seeing it.

It is curious that sometimes this additional drawing can somewhat distort the overall perception , especially in a child. If, say, the child’s father is a tall man and wears a mustache, mustachioed people will immediately seem to his little son somewhat taller than other people.

Meaningfulness

The perception of a phenomenon and an object is inextricably linked with human thinking.

Perception delivers information to the brain, thinking processes it, comprehends it and sets the task of what to do with this information.

Seeing an unfamiliar object, a person immediately tries to recognize it, compare it with something that is already known or at least similar . That is, in this case, perception does not just make up a photograph of what was seen, it is also constantly looking for a way out of the current situation, comprehending it.

Let's say, while looking for a way out in an unfamiliar room, we come across a locked door. The senses signal that there is no passage here, but that’s not all. Together with thinking, the search for a key, master key or something similar begins.

Thus, the meaningfulness of perception can change the state of the seen object or phenomenon.

Structurality

This property of perception is inextricably linked with its integrity. Often, in order to objectively understand a particular phenomenon, a person needs to understand its structure. This realization does not come immediately:

1. When listening to some new melody, the human ear does not immediately perceive its individual notes and fragments, their recognition occurs gradually, at the same time, the most complete sensation of this music, its perception will come precisely with the recognition of these fragments.
2. Often, knowledge of any complex mechanisms comes only with the study of their structure; sometimes a large object as a whole is difficult to perceive at all without studying its structure.
3. Structural perception is especially characteristic of young children; when they get acquainted with new toys, they often take them apart.

Apperception

This is the name given to the dependence of the consciousness’s perception of reality on the general psychological state of a person and his lifestyle.

How is it shown:

1. Usually, we automatically compare any new object with something we have already seen, for example, it resembles a circle, a triangle or some other geometric figure; children associate many trees or bushes with some kind of animal or toy.
2. Apperception directly depends on age and level of knowledge : a child perceives any circle in a circle, an adult can immediately note the center of the circle, possible diameter, etc.
3. Experience or inclinations are of great importance ; the same circle will most likely remind a circus lover of an arena, and it will remind a schoolchild of geometry lessons.
4. are of great importance ; a cook, for example, will quickly determine the recipe for a dish, but an ordinary lover of a quick meal will most likely not notice some of the ingredients.

Psychology of Individual Differences

Psychology of abilities, temperament, character, typology of individuality, structure of individuality.

Related sections (1): Person » Differential psychology and psychometrics (14) similar sections (5): Library » Educational literature » Reader » Introduction to general psychology » Psychology as a science (20) Workshop » Applied psychology » Educational psychology (17) Workshop » Applied psychology » Psychology and work (12) Person » Humanistic psychology (7) Person » Developmental psychology (3)

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