Sensory+Data+Questions

Back to Home>Back to Perception and Language The below additional questions are take directly from the IB Subject Guide for Examinations beginning in 2008. They are useful to consider if you are looking for additional stimulus.

Sense perception
> Do androids dream of electric sheep? Philip K Dick We perceive the world through our five senses: sense perception is the active, selective and interpretative process of recording or becoming conscious of the external world. Because sensory perception is an important dimension of our understanding of the world, its function and scope should be examined and critically evaluated. The following questions may help students become aware of the nature and power of sense perception, and how it relates to knowledge acquisition, knowledge claims, and their justification.

Nature of sense perception
>> By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. Aldous Huxley (1954)
 * In what ways does the biological constitution of a living organism determine, influence or limit its sense perception? If humans are sensitive only to certain ranges of stimuli, what consequences or limitations might this have for the acquisition of knowledge? How does technology extend, modify, improve or restrict the capabilities of the senses?
 * What possibilities for knowledge are opened to us by our senses as they are? What limitations?
 * Is the nature of sense perception such that, as Huxley suggests, sensations are essentially private and incommunicable?