What is the illusion of perception? Scientists are dealing with this issue not only in our country, but throughout the world. It is worth noting that this topic is of great interest to ordinary people who are not members of the circle of psychologists. In general, the illusion of perception is not quite an adequate reflection of the properties of the object or of itself in perception. It can be some gray object, which when placed on a dark background turns out to be darker than when placed on a completely black background.
Today, people know many illusions. This is a stroboscopic, autokinetic, induced movement. All this can be attributed to the group of illusions of movement. In addition, in the world there are many illusions of temperature type, time and even color. However, a theory that would explain all this does not yet exist. Most experts believe that such effects are the result of the work of our perception mechanisms, which occurs in unusual conditions.
The illusion of perception, more precisely, its nature, in most cases is explained by some structural features of the human eye. Many people generally believe that our whole world is one huge illusion. Many books have been written on this subject. The illusions of perception in psychology are explained as a distorted perception of something from our world or the whole of reality. Illusions make us experience those feelings that do not correspond to reality at all.
Probably, many people know the visual illusion of perception of Mueller - Layer. For a long time, specialists tried to explain such a distortion of reality. As a result, it was this illusion that was much better studied than anything else. A great example of the illusion of perception of this type is the distortion of any things or objects when they are perceived through a prism or ordinary water. In addition, numerous mirages that often arise in deserts can be cited as examples. It is simply impossible to explain such processes with the help of psychology.
It is worth noting that at the moment there is no universally accepted unified psychological classification of this kind of illusion. In addition, they can be found in almost all modalities of the touch type. If we talk about the taste illusions of perception, then this is, above all, an illusion of contrast. That is, as a result of the consumption of some food, some taste sensations are superimposed on others. For example, sucrose often gives a bitter taste to water, and salt - sour.
As for the so-called proprioceptive illusion of perception, an example of this type is the special or, as they say, drunken gait of professional sailors. In their case, the deck seems to a person a fairly stable surface. If the sailor walks on a flat surface, then the earth as if leaves from under his feet.
In order to explain the illusions of perception, scientists put forward a huge number of different theories. According to one of them, the illusion of perception is not at all an abnormal phenomenon. This process is quite expected. The thing is that directly the perception of a person depends, first of all, on the interaction of several stimuli in the visual field. For example, if you study some kind of neutral color, based specifically on the ratio of two or more neighboring areas, you can expect an illusory contrast. That is, in this case, everything is predictable.
There is another theory that explains the origin of specific illusions based on the effect of asymmetry. This is where the illusion of perception, which was already mentioned above, can be attributed under the name Müller - Layer.