Perception

PERCEPTION (from Latin percipio - I perceive), perception (see). The environment acts upon us in the course of our activity, and we perceive it, perceiving it. The organ of perception, as well as of the psyche in general, is our brain. Perception is not an isolated process, but one manifestation of the integral practical activity of man, taking place in specific socio-historical conditions. Therefore, perception is historically unique, and its features are connected with the level of the social formation to which a person belongs, with the class affiliation of this person, with his social functions, with the degree of his inclusion in these functions (and in connection with this also with his age). Thus, both the form and content of perception differ among people of different historical epochs, different classes, and different ages. Here labor has fundamental significance, in the process of which our perceptions are formed. Thus perception is not the passive reception of external environmental influences. "Man in his practical activity has before him an objective world, depends on it, and determines his activity by it" (Lenin, IX collection, p. 273). Contrary to the theories of associationist psychology, perception is not the sum of sensations of separate properties of an object; it psychophysiologically represents a holistic complex formation, a system or structure, in which not so much the parts determine the whole, but, on the contrary, the whole itself determines its parts. We cannot therefore separate our perceptions from our orientation, from our thinking, from our feelings. Leibniz (Leibniz; 1646-1716) contrasts perception as an "internal state reproducing external things" with the state of obscure apperception (see) - "consciousness, reflective knowledge of this internal state," i.e., the comprehension, awareness of the immediate impression. Herbart (Herbart; 1776-1871) developed this doctrine in more detail, who understood by perception the immediate group of representations (see) called forth by the given stimuli, and by apperception - the change of this group under the influence of previously existing groups - its interpretation in connection with past experience, with preceding tendencies. Herbart pointed out that, for example, when seeing an orange, we perceive in it not only color and form, but also roughness, weight, smell and taste, although we do not perceive them at the moment, but only remember them. Herbart believed that perception represents the sum of sensations of these properties of the object, he reduced perceptions to the mechanics of sensations and representations. Modern Gestalt psychology, rightly noting the incorrectness of such an interpretation, does not notice what is essential in perception, namely its social content and significance. A capitalist and a worker perceive, experience differently the factory building they see: for the first, the perception of this object may be inextricably linked, for example, with the anticipation of profits, for the second - with the unpleasant thought of forced labor under conditions of capitalist exploitation, etc. Wundt (W. Wundt; 1832-1920) understands perception somewhat differently. Just as in the visual field we distinguish its central part, which is clearest, from the peripheral fields of vision, which are less clear and become increasingly indistinct toward the periphery, so in our perceptions, according to Wundt, we can distinguish clear and distinct perceptions from indistinct and vague ones. Before becoming clear and entering into connection with a person's past experience, the impression usually passes through a zone of incomplete clarity, then we call it perception. The concept of "experience" in Wundt, as indeed in most bourgeois psychologists, has an abstract, idealistic character. The fact that in the process of perception a person's experience participates should (contrary to Herbart, Wundt, Gestalt psychology, etc.) be understood and studied in the light of the only correct conception of man as a "sum of social relations" (Marx), as a representative of a certain socio-historical formation, a certain class. Perception is one of the instruments of man's ever-increasing knowledge of the objective world, one of the components of a complex and historically developing activity "reflecting the object" (Lenin).