Factors that Influence Visual Perception and Visual Cognition

Factors that Influence Visual Perception and Visual Cognition
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Introduction
Human beings have five sense organs (sensory receptors) that are critical to receiving information from the environment. They include the eye (sight), ear (hearing), nose (smell), tongue (taste), and skin (touch). These senses enable individuals to make contact with the world and all that is in it. Each organ is a fragment of the sensory system, which receives sensory inputs and transmits sensory information to the brain. The process of picking up information through the sensory receptors is called sensation. Once a sensation takes place, interpretation of the sensory information precedes. This is referred to as perception. The brain's prime portal to the environment is sight or vision. In psychology, visual perception is the brain's ability to receive, interpret, and act on visual stimuli. Therefore, research on visual perception and cognition is critical to not only understanding the brain's mechanisms of sight but also comprehending how individuals optimize the tasks guided by sight. This study seeks to critically assess the factors that affect or influence visual perception and cognition. Examples of aspects that influence visual perception comprise culture and emotions. Others include visual cognition during social interactions and how information from emotion, prediction, audition, and cognition influences visual processing and visual perception in pathological and healthy aging. The study begins by discussing the concept of visual perception and cognition as a building block toward understanding these factors.
Overview of Visual Perception and Visual Cognition
The primary portal between the environment and the brain is sight or vision. For one to comprehend insights into the environment, they must see it for the brain to interpret. The mental process or action of acquiring or accumulating knowledge or understanding of an aspect within the environment through sensory organs, experiences, or thoughts is called cognition. It is the unconscious or conscious process by which knowledge is obtained via perception, judgment, reasoning, conceiving, and recognition. Thus, visual cognition is the accumulation of knowledge via the assessment of sensory information from the eyes through the optical nerves to the brain. Since sight is the prime sensory organ, visual perception is vital for cognition. Various researchers have broadly defined visual perception. It is often used interchangeably with visual processing. Kurtz (2006) defined visual perception as the cognition process of seeing something (such as an item or writing), absorbing it, and organizing it in the brain to make sense. A typical example of the importance of visual perception in cognition is reading, where one sees the writings in a book, and the brain makes sense of words.
Visual perception is necessary because it can help one to mentally interpret and manipulate any visual information received from their surroundings. It enables people to respond based on the environment's demands. Orloff (2004) explains that visual perception is the brain's ability to receive visual stimuli, interpret them, and ponder on them to deduce me...