Perception of Reality in AP Psychology

Definition

Perception of reality refers to how we interpret and make sense of the information received by our senses, forming our subjective experience of the world around us.

Related terms

Sensation:

The process by which our sensory receptors detect and respond to sensory information from the environment.

Gestalt principles: Principles that describe how we organize sensory information into meaningful wholes or patterns.

Perceptual constancy: Our tendency to perceive objects as relatively stable despite changes in their sensory information (e.g., size constancy - seeing an object as the same size regardless of its distance).