Final Project Post

I first choose this class because I needed this type of psychology course as a requirement and perception psychology just so happened to be the course I picked. I will admit that I had not the slightest clue what this course was going to be about and that made it even more interesting. Now that the course is coming to an end I can say that I am truly pleased that I made the decision to take this course and with professor Berg. Although I will admit I wasn't too thrilled about taking summer courses while working a full time job and taking care of everyday responsibilities, but I am honestly so glad that I did because this course was well worth it. I do however think that some of the concepts that we learned about were a little more on the complicated side but that is what makes learning new things so interesting. I have learned so many new concepts and most of all learned just how much our senses are involved with our perception. Now that I have learned about perception I have come to realize how we take for granted everyday experiences simply such as talking to people or tasting food. I never really took the time to think about this and now that I have, I have a much greater appreciation for our senses and just how they work to perceive the things around us in everyday life.

I would say that one of my favorite parts of the course was in chapter five where we learned about perceiving objects and scenes. I thought that the different types of approaches such as the Structuralist Approach and the Gestalt Approach were interesting approaches when dealing with our perceptions. It was interesting to learn the differences between perceiving an individual object compared to objects that are grouped together within a scene. We see thousands of objects in our every day lives and it is interesting to learn just exactly how we perceive these objects that we see each and every day. Another favorite part of this course was chapter nine where we learned about why we perceive different colors. This relates to everyday life because nonstop twenty four hours seven days a week all we see is color. It's crazy to think that we all do see the same color but it is the way that we perceive the color we are looking at that makes the real difference. I thought that the Trichromatic Theory of Color Vision by Young and Helmholtz was a very interesting theory to learn about when it comes to color vision. I never knew the theory behind color vision and it was neat to learn from this theory that color vision actually depends on the activity of three different receptor mechanisms. Perception is something that we experience constantly and learning about how it works is what makes it so fascinating. Overall, I have learned many new and interesting concepts that I probably would never have known about if it wasn't for taking this course. I think Dr. Berg's perception psychology course is an excellent course to take on. I would most definitely recommend this course to any students considering taking it in the future and especially to those majoring in psychology.

(Thomas Young and Colour Blindness)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-majiS83ACs

(Short Video Clip by Professor Richard Gregory)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHeaXKYmB2k