Nature of Thought Paper, Research Paper Example

We receive sensations through our five senses, smell, taste, feelings, sight and hearing. The sensory receptor cells “receive the stimuli from the environment in which we thrive and through transduction the cells transfer the stimuli to nerve impulses to be processed in the brain.” (“Sensory and Perceptual Processes”). Through the cerebral cortex we give meaning to things through processing and evaluating them. This is the art of perception. As with an optical illusion the art of perception is not always accurate. We categorize things according to how our memory works and further focus on particular sensations. This is the process of perceiving, drawing conclusions, giving meaning and thinking. A stimuli goes straight from the eyes to the brain then gets processed into a thought. The brain then organizes the thought into a perception.

An “absolute threshold determines the amount of stimulus needed to produce a sensation at least half of the time.” (“Sensory and Perceptual Processes”). Threshold is the amount of stimulus necessary for a change to be noticed at all. A difference threshold is the smallest sensation change necessary to produce “a noticeable change in two stimuli that can be detected in two trials with subjects” (“Sensory and Perceptual Processes”). Weber’s Law represents the stronger stimulus required to notice any change.

Memory is the ability to recover past knowledge or events that have entered the brain. It is further the process of cognitive reconstruction of the mind. Memory is divided into short term and long term process. Long term memory is concerned with recalling distant past whilst short term is concerned with recovering more recent events. Memory is further defined as “storing information in the brain for retrieval later on.” (“How do Educational Psychologists Define Memory”).

The medium is defined as the surrounding environment, a means of communication, a means of which signals can travel an intermediate state of extremes, somewhere in the middle of an evaluation or a liquid by which a painter might mix a pigmented color. Particularly for the purpose of this paper the reference medium is the basis of which the results will be compared against. It is the standard or measure of value such as a control.

I can remember when I thought my husband was spending overtime with his secretary and having an affair with her. I started watching his changes in clothing, haircut and body tone. I thought he was doing all of the above to appease his secretary. He made these changes and was not spending enough time with me. I was not able to come out and verbally tell him about my suspicions. I allowed my suspicions to run wild on me. I learned that I had come to many unfounded ideas and thoughts.

The most obvious blocks are “our habits but we must break these to create new patterns I our life.” (Davis, 1992). Another familiar block is old family traditions that seem to stick with us forever. These are often referred to us as procedural barriers of life. Cultural block are conformity blocks by set norms of society and others way of thinking. Emotional blocks are set by employees, wives and husbands, friends, co-workers, fear, anxiety and other factors irrelevant to our own way of thinking. Finally resource barriers are financial barriers that prevent us from utilizing our own way of thinking or prevent us from using innovation and full imagination. An example of thought being influenced by barriers might be when remodeling a home and wanting to choose a flooring that would be a lifelong flooring that cost $2.99 a square yard but the total cost would be $500 for the entire room but having to settle for the total cost of $150 for the room for a 5 year coverage due to finances. The choice for the cheaper flooring would not be recommended for the long haul but due to finances you were forced to choose the lesser wise deal. Thoughts are manipulated by barriers because you may have convinced yourself that the lower priced deal would suffice by telling yourself that you will have the money to change the floor again in five years but the hard core fact is that by the time you change the floor again in five years the price of the flooring will triple and you will have spent double the price for the same flooring and may not have the same original quality you wanted originally. This is called manipulative justification. We can tell ourselves anything we want to in order to make ourselves feel better, can’t we?

References

Sensory and Perceptual Processes (2009) Retrieved May 19, 2010 from, http://www.umpi.maine.edu/~stump/perception.html

Davis, G. (1992) Blocks and Barriers: Are they Squelching your Creativity Retrieved May 19, 2010 from, http://www.winstonbrill.com/bril001/html/article_index/articles/1-50/article17_body.html