This paper examines two major theories of how human beings perceive their environment: the classical theory of perception, associated with Hermann von Helmholtz, and the active theory of perception. Beginning with an overview of how the brain processes sensory information, the paper outlines the strengths and weaknesses of each theory. It argues that while the classical theory adequately explains familiar, experience-based categorization, it cannot account for instinctual knowledge, entirely novel experiences, or the influence of motivation on perception. The active theory, which frames perception as a deliberate, two-phase process, better accounts for these phenomena. The paper concludes that both theories are partially valid and likely operate together to shape our understanding of the world.
The only world that truly exists for any of us is the one inside our brains. Each of us experiences the world in our own special way — our world is made up of our experiences and perceptions. The way that every individual perceives their world is different from the way any other individual perceives theirs. What makes our worlds different are our perceptions, not the world itself. This paper explores two different theories of how we perceive our world: the classical theory of perception and the active theory of perception, in order to gain a better understanding of how our perceptions affect our worldview.
Our own virtual reality exists because the brain does not directly experience a physical environment. Instead, it receives information about the environment in the form of physical energy (Berliner and Cohen, pp. 44). Cells in the brain communicate through the release of neurochemicals, and the brain begins the process of analyzing the data it receives. Receptor cells gather and translate information from the environment into a neurochemical language that the brain can understand (Berliner and Cohen, pp. 44).
The process of perception begins with an object or stimulus — such as light, sound, or the feel of a certain object. The stimulus activates the body's sensory system. This signal is sent to the brain, and the brain attempts to reconstruct a mental representation of the stimulus. This mental reconstruction is what we refer to as the perception of the object or stimulus. The brain continues to process this mental image by organizing it, interpreting it, and sometimes transforming it into a form that is quite different from the physical world from which the perception was formed.
Perception is a remarkable human ability and a complex topic. Our perceptions have several traits that make them unique, one of which is constancy. Constancy can refer to an object's size, shape, color, or orientation. Size constancy means that a person or object appears to be approximately the same size regardless of their distance from the viewer, even though the image on the retina grows larger or smaller. Shape constancy refers to the perception that the shape of an object remains the same despite being viewed from different perspectives — a difficult concept to grasp, because the image on the retina does in fact change.
Our perception of motion is also a complex mechanism. We perceive motion through contextual clues from the environment and through specific visual receptor cells capable of detecting different types of movement. For instance, we have the ability to distinguish an object from the background in a painting by grouping stimuli and identifying what does not belong to the same group. We also possess depth perception that allows us to account for varying distances of objects, and we can perceive illusions as something entirely different from physical reality.
There are many different theories of perception. The classical theory is associated with Hermann von Helmholtz. It holds that perception results from a process of unconscious inference about the stimulus being received — inferences most likely formed through past learning experience, occurring without conscious effort on the perceiver's part. Conde and Thalmann (p. 457) draw on these basic principles to examine how information is processed in a virtual world.
The processing of information in a virtual world exposes a key limitation of the classical theory. The world inside a computer can feel very real to the user while bearing no resemblance to anything in their physical world. It is therefore difficult to argue that the classical theory holds in all cases, because the person does not always have a real-world frame of reference to use when interpreting a virtual environment. If the classical theory were the dominant model, it would fail to explain how a person forms a perception of something they have never encountered in the real world. The classical theory fits well for objects and experiences that are a regular part of everyday life, but it is inadequate to explain how we can perceive a virtual world as though it were real.
Another disadvantage of the classical theory is that, if taken as universally true, it cannot explain how we form perceptions of things we have never experienced at all. If we are simply the sum of our past, one must wonder how we process entirely novel perceptions. The classical theory holds that past experience serves as a reference point and that we categorize new experiences into familiar categories. However, it also fails to explain how babies can possess certain tacit knowledge that is apparently present from birth. For instance, once a baby reaches a certain stage of development, they will show an automatic fear of fire, even if they have never been burned or exposed to fire before. Like other higher-order animals, humans appear to be born with a set of knowledge that is not derived from past experience.
The classical theory holds that we do not actively seek experiences and that we simply interpret the experiences we do have in relation to our past. This view has several disadvantages: it cannot adequately explain instinctual behaviors or entirely novel experiences. It does, however, have a clear advantage when it comes to categorizing information that fits neatly into an established pattern. For instance, if we see a breed of dog we have never encountered, we can quickly determine that it belongs to the category of "dog." We are able to generalize a specific animal into a broader, familiar category.
"Two-phase active model vs. passive classical view"
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At this point, we have moved away from the classical view of perception. The classical view of perception appears to be too simplistic to explain the complex phenomena uncovered in recent studies. If the classical view held true in all cases, we would simply be products of our environment — but as the evidence shows, this is not the case. The way we perceive our environment can be influenced by our wishes and desires. Furthermore, the classical view cannot explain hallucinations and illusions that exist only in the conscious mind and have no basis in physical reality as detected by the sensory organs (Crane).
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