Quotes About Perception

If an artistic object represents the thing-itself perfectly, it is just another copy of that thing. The point of art is to emphasize some elements at the expense of others...

What do you mean you don't sing?! You talk!" Jim told me later, "It was as odd to them as if I told them that I couldn't walk or dance, even though I have both my legs.

It's not just that we remember things wrongly (which would be bad enough), but we don't even know we're remembering them wrongly

Similarly with pitch: From a one-dimensional continuum of molecules vibrating at different speeds, our brains construct a rich, multidimensional pitch space with three, four, or even five dimensions (according to some models). If our brain is adding this many dimensions to what is out there in the world, this can help explain the deep reactions we have to sounds that are properly constructed and skillfully combined.

The processing capacity of the conscious mind has been estimated at 120 bits per second.

Children's penchant for music seems to begin in infancy. By seven months, infants can remember music for as long as two weeks and can distinguish particular strains of Mozart they've heard versus very similar ones they haven't, suggesting an innate—and evolutionary—basis for music perception and memory.

Online daters are significantly more likely to admit they're fat than that they're Republicans.

he turned Kennedy into an in-group member For an experimental replication of this, see Experiment 2 in Rothbart, M., & Hallmark, W. (1988). In-group-out-group differences in the perceived efficacy of coercion and conciliation in resolving social conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55(2), 248–257.

The common neural mechanisms that underlie perception of music and memory for music help to explain how it is that songs get stuck in our heads. Scientists call these ear worms, from the German Ohrwurm, or simply the stuck song syndrome. There

The common neural mechanisms that underlie perception of music and memory for music help to explain how it is that songs get stuck in our heads. Scientists call these ear worms, from the German Ohrwurm, or simply the stuck song syndrome.

Ambiguity begets participation.

When a language advances and adds a third term to its lexicon for color, the third term is always red.

Mindfulness has never met a cognition it didn't like.

Our state of mind can turn even neutral comments into fighting words, distorting what we hear to fit what we fear.

We must keep in mind that only a part of memory can be translated into the language-based packets of information people use to tell their life stories to others. Learning to be open to many layers of communication is a fundamental part of getting to know another person's life.

not all encounters with the world affect the mind equally. Studies have demonstrated that if the brain appraises an event as "meaningful," it will be more likely to be recalled in the future.

Simply put, reactivity cuts off seeing clearly.

Everything they see, hear, feel, touch, or even smell impacts their brain and thus influences the way they view and interact with their world—including their family, neighbors, strangers, friends, classmates, and even themselves.

noticing not just their words but also their nonverbal patterns of energy and information flow. These signals are the familiar primarily right-hemisphere sent and received elements of eye contact, facial expression, and tone of voice, posture, gesture, and the timing and intensity of response. The

Attunement requires presence but is a process of focused attention and clear perception. We

Automatic pilot (Res/App):A way of being that is driven by a state of mind that is devoid of active reflection and that often involves top-down processing. It is reflected in reactive and enduring patterns of thought and bodily posture and movement, in which the past is shaping present perceptual biases, emotional responses, and behavioral output.

On the subjective side of reality, resonance can be detected internally as we look to the other and recognize evidence that the other is changed because of our own internal world. We see a tear forming at the edge of the other's eyes as we have just told a sad story. We

sense of danger, we cannot activate what Porges calls the social engagement system. And we don't access what I've called a self-engagement system either (see

Things as they are clash with things as our top-down invariant processes expect them to be. We shove sensation through the filter of the past to make the future predictable. In the process, we lose the present. But because the present is all that exists, we have lost everything in the bargain.