The Perception concept and William James’ biology of consciousness contribute greatly to the field of psychology. Perception involves seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting. Additionally, it involves, feeling the positions of joints and the tension of muscles, balance, temperature, pain. It begins with the stimulation of sensory neurons. The perception concept is used in understanding the attention concept in psychology. Taste and smell receptors respond to environmental molecules in the same way that other neurons respond to neurotransmitters. And the neurons of the retina respond to the presence of light or the specific frequency ranges of light we perceive as color. But perception is more than just passive reception of information. We can say the same about hearing. The perception concept and William James’ biology of consciousness have significant importance in the field of psychology and in understanding what it means to perceive.
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WILLIAM JAMES’ BIOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND PERSPECTIVE ON RELIGION
It is at Harvard that James developed the perception concept contributing to the field of psychology. Trained in medicine, William James first taught physiology at Harvard and had absorbed Darwin’s view of evolution and in particular. James thought broadly and yet saw that all human behaviors are probably ultimately grounded in biology. The attention concept borrowed heavily from James’ concept of perception. In offering some biological particulars, there is a connection with William James’ perspective on religion and consciousness with the work of another Harvard professor concerned with the particulars of human spiritual life, Richard Evans Schultes, known as the father of ethnobotany. His lifelong work was documenting the indigenous uses of plants and fungi throughout the Americas, including in religious rituals. The perception concept was born as a result of William James’ biology of consciousness.
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ATTENTION CONCEPT AND WILLIAM JAMES’ BIOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Attention is awareness of the here and now in a focal and perceptive way and is the basis of the attention concept. For early psychologists, such as Edward Bradford, attention determined the content of consciousness and influenced the quality of conscious experience. In subsequent years less emphasis was placed on the subjective element of consciousness and more on the behavior patterns by which attention could be recognized in others. The perception concept and William James’ biology of consciousness helped in understanding the relationship between attention and consciousness. There are, for example, times when an individual has difficulty concentrating attention on a task, a conversation, or a set of events. Attention has to do with the immediate experience of the individual and the perception concept helps in explaining attention in detail.
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