Perceptual Selection and Integration

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Abstract
Perception involves both a selection from, and an integration of, the data conveyed to the brain from the sense organs. Selection seems to be made in terms of both simple sensory qualities and more complex semantic aspects of incoming data, and appears to result in ‘ unwanted ’ data being in a very real sense attenuated. It is achieved at some cost, as is shown by the fact that selection commonly takes a time which increases with the degree of specificity to which it is carried. Research results do not yet fully agree upon the extent to which different features of incoming data are selected simultaneously or successively. Perceptual integration appears to achieve economy of decision in the sense that it enables a large quantity of incoming data to be handled as a limited number of ‘ units ’. Of the various ways in which this is achieved, the extraction of rates of change and of time-sequences, the imposition of ‘ schemata ’ or ‘ templates ’ from past experience, and the building of perceptual frameworks in both space and time are considered. Some consequences and practical implications arc briefly discussed

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