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perception
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ambiguous picture Examples of Gestalt principles of organization perception modified by learned assumptions
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ambiguous picture Figure 1: An ambiguous picture. Increasing viewing distance permits more precise perception (see text).

perception

psychology
Also known as: apprehension
Written by
William Epstein
Professor of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Author of Varieties of Perceptual Learning.
William EpsteinAll
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perception, in humans, the process whereby sensory stimulation is translated into organized experience. That experience, or percept, is the joint product of the stimulation and of the process itself. Relations found between various types of stimulation (e.g., light waves and sound waves) and their associated percepts suggest inferences that can be made about the properties of the perceptual process; theories of perceiving then can be developed on the basis of these inferences. Because the perceptual...

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