Developmental psychology.pdf

Perception and Consciousness 171
Itard failed in his aim of transforming Victor into a normal person, but he did
achieve a more lasting outcome. His clever methods became the foundation for educational
efforts with the deaf, with children, and with other students. Today they form
the basis of many classroom practices, from the Montessori system to more traditional
procedures. Itard was widely recognized in his time in medical and educational circles,
just as he is regarded today as an early proponent of behavior modification, particularly
in special education (Leary, 1981).
But he was forever confronted with these nagging queries. "Does the Savage
speak? If he is not deaf, why does he not speak?"
The full answers in Victor's case are still puzzling, and they are compounded
by another true-life tale. A little girl named Genie was kept in a dark closet for 11
years, until the age of 13. After her release and extensive training, she attained a significant
degree of human speech, even though it remained abnormal in important ways.
With a period of deprivation that was longer than Victor's and began at an apparently
earlier age, she achieved a higher degree of development (Curtiss, 1977).
Did the voices of Genie's brother and father, talking on the floor below, somehow
reach her attic room? Or was Pinel correct in the first place? Was Victor abandoned
because he was significantly retarded? We shall never know. But one long scar
on his neck, not covered by clothes, appeared to be the work of a human hand.
Summary
Problem of Attending
1. What someone perceives depends upon the selection, organization, and
interpretation of stimulation. With regard to selection, an individual attends
to certain stimuli and not to others. Attending is a readiness to perceive,
based chiefly on an internal state. Set is more than attending; it is a
readiness to perceive in a certain way, arising from the perceiver's interests
and motivations, and it can be highly influential in perception.
2. What someone perceives is also a function of the stimulus. Most important
in catching attention are the intensity and novelty of the stimulation.
Organizing the Perceptual Field
3. Discrimination of figure-ground relationships seems to be the starting point
in organized perceptual experience. According to gestalt psychologists, the
parts of a figure, or several figures, are grouped on the basis of similarity,
proximity, closure, and good form.
4. A stable perception of the world is also based on perceptual constancy,
which is the tendency to perceive any given object as the same, even though
it stimulates us in a variety of ways. Important aspects of perceptual
constancy are shape, size, and color.
Making an Interpretation
5. Space perception arises from the integration of diverse cues from several
senses. Monocular cues include interposition", shadows, linear perspective,
texture gradient, size of the retinal image, relative movement, and
accommodation of the lens. Among the binocular cues are convergence,
which is of doubtful value except at close distances, and retinal disparity,
which occurs because the different locations of the eyes give rise to different
retinal images.
6. Movement is perceived whenever successive areas of the retina are
differentially stimulated. Without a frame of reference, however, induced
motion rather than real visual movement is likely to be experienced.