(a) Describe the factors influencing perceptual organization with reference to past experiences and perceptual readiness. (20…

(a) Perceptual organisation: the role of past experience and perceptual readiness

Perceptual organisation is the structuring of sensory input into coherent, meaningful wholes (figure and ground, grouping). Gestalt psychologists (Wertheimer, Koffka, Köhler) described bottom-up principles such as proximity, similarity, closure and continuity, and also gave weight to familiarity. But the same input can be organised differently depending on what the perceiver brings, which is top-down influence. Past experience: learning builds schemas and categories that guide grouping and recognition. In Leeper's (1935) ambiguous young woman/old woman figure, people who first saw a clear version of one woman mostly saw that woman in the ambiguous figure. Gregory's (1970) Dalmatian picture shows random blotches until a past-experience cue organises them into a dog, and once seen it is hard to unsee. Bruner and Minturn (1955) showed that an ambiguous figure was read as the letter "B" after letters and as "13" after numbers. Culture also matters: Segall and colleagues (1966) found that people raised in less "carpentered" environments were less susceptible to the Müller-Lyer illusion. Perceptual readiness: Bruner (1957) defined it as the accessibility of a category for interpreting input; the more accessible the category, the less stimulus information is needed. Readiness comes from set (expectation, instructions, context), motives and values (Bruner and Goodman, 1947: poorer children overestimated coin size more, though replications are mixed), and emotion (McGinnies, 1949: taboo words needed longer exposure, called perceptual defence). Thus organisation is the product of stimulus structure, learned schemas and current readiness, so perception is a constructive process.

(b) Physiological and psychological bases of motivation

Motivation is the set of processes that initiate, direct and sustain goal-directed behaviour. Physiological basis: the body's regulation of internal states, or homeostasis, creates drives (Hull's drive-reduction theory). The hypothalamus is central: in the classic dual-centre view, the lateral area promotes eating and the ventromedial area signals satiety, though newer work stresses arcuate-nucleus circuits and hormones such as ghrelin (hunger) and leptin (satiety). Thirst arises when osmoreceptors detect raised blood osmolarity or reduced volume. The reticular activating system and arousal (Hebb; Yerkes-Dodson) set the level of activation. Example: after a day without food, falling glucose and rising ghrelin produce hunger, which food intake reduces. Psychological basis: needs, goals, incentives, cognitions and social learning that are not simply biological deficits. Maslow arranged needs from physiological to self-actualisation; McClelland described the learned needs for achievement, affiliation and power; incentive theory holds that the pull of a goal also motivates; Bandura's self-efficacy and Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory stress competence and autonomy. Example: a candidate studies for months for the civil services examination, driven by achievement need and a valued goal despite physical discomfort. The two work together: a hungry student's drive is modulated by goals and beliefs.

(c) Key ideas of Psychocybernetics

Psychocybernetics is the self-help system proposed by the plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz (1960), who applied the cybernetic ideas of Norbert Wiener (feedback and goal-seeking servomechanisms) to human behaviour. Self-image as set point: each person holds a mental picture of "the kind of person I am". Like a thermostat, it keeps behaviour and performance consistent with this image, so a person with a low self-image tends to fail even with ability. Maltz noticed that surgery changed appearance without always changing self-image. Servo-mechanism and feedback: the brain works as a goal-seeking system, which sets a goal, acts, receives feedback and corrects the error; it works on success when the goal is clear and failures are treated as information. Mental rehearsal: because the nervous system reacts to vividly imagined experience much as to real experience, imagery and relaxation can rehearse success and reshape the self-image; Maltz held that old patterns need about 21 days to change. Evaluation: the approach is popular, not rigorous, but its ideas link to self-concept, self-efficacy and the meta-analytic support for mental practice in sport (Driskell et al., 1994).