Sensation and Perception

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Sensation and Perception
Summary
The two terms are different in meaning, but they complement each other. Sensation refers to the process whereby a person senses the environment through the various sense organs such as nose for smell, hands for touch, tongue for taste, eyes for sight and ears for sound (Goldstein 3). Through sensation, one can know their surroundings. The information is relayed to the brain which then develops a perception. Perception, on the other hand, is the process through which the data generated from sensation is interpreted, and hence one can understand everything that surrounds them (Goldstein et al. 20). As such, the sensation is the brain input for the physical world which is generated through the sensory receptors which are then selected, organized and interpreted through the process of perception. The physiological foundation of perception could, therefore, be regardedas as senses (May 7). The reality in the world people lived in is influenced by sensations and perceptions, and as a consequence, their actions, as well as the decisions they make, are by a great extent a result of these realities.
A Real Life Experience
One of the observations I have made is the reactions of a dog to things I cannot see and cannot even smell. I have seen a dog smell and move towards a direction seemingly being guided by that smell. I could not identify or differentiate the specific smell that caused the dog to react in that manner.

From this observation, I could determine that my reality and the dog’s reality are different.
Reflection
The way the dog reacts is as a result of its reality which it attained through sensation. In this observation, the dog interpreted the smell through the process of perception, and as a result, it reacted by moving towards the direction the smell was coming from. Since its sensation was different from mine, I had a different reality from it, yet we were within the same environment.
Works Cited
Goldstein, E B, Glyn W. Humphreys, Margaret Shiffrar, and William A. Yost. Blackwell Handbook of Sensation and Perception. Oxford, UK; Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. 2005.
Goldstein, E B. Sensation and Perception. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. 2014.
May, Mike. Sensation and Perception. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2007. Internet resource.