WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PERCEPTION, COGNITION, AND ACTION?

What Is the Difference between Perception, Cognition, & Action?

Perception, Cognition & Action

Neisser was one of the first researchers, who tried to integrate activity, perception, and learning. He emphasized that human experi-ence depends on the stored mental schemata, which guide explorative behavior and the perception of an external context. Learning increases constantly the complexity of the mental model (especially the structure of the cognitive knowledge base). This is an irre-versible process. (BERLYNE, D.E. 2006)

One consequence of this irreversibility is that the contextual complexity must increase appropriately to fit the human's needs for optimal variety and stimulation. If we take this concept into serious considerations, then we can identify several open ques-tions: How is activity coupled with the per-ception of the external world (the context; see point 1 in

How does perception depend on the internal mental schemata.

Leontyev's three- level schema describes the sphere of analysis and directs the attention to the transformations going on between three levels: mo-tive-activity, goal-action, and instrumental conditions-operations [6]. These three levels are organized in a hierarchical structure where the top level of activities includes several ac-tions that are performed by appropriate opera-tions. In a 'pure' objective way only the opera-tional level can be observed and analyzed. The goal setting and motivational level must be derived or investigated by indirect methods (e.g., questionnaire, interview, thinking aloud, etc.) based on the introspective observations of the investigated subjects. (Note the similarity to the model in: knowledge based, rule based, and skill based level.)

Action regulation theory offers a coherent body of principles for human-centered task and work design. For Hacker, the work order, its interpretation or its accep-tance as a work task. (BERLYNE, D.E. 2006)

Incomplete activities or dismembered actions "lack, to a large extent, possibilities for inde-pendent goal-setting and decision-making, for developing individual work styles or suffi-ciently precise feedback. Com-plete activities (or tasks) offer the possibility of setting goals and sub-goals, as well as of of-fering decision -making possibilities during the various phases of task completion, and there-fore provide latitude of activity or action. Complete activities are therefore becoming fundamental for realizing the concept of action regulation. Goals are organized in a hierar-chical tree structure. The complete action cycle has a fractal or recursive structure: Each component of the complete action cycle can be analyzed with an embed-ded and subordinated action cycle. Chunking occurs over Leonteyev's all three levels. "Action Theory seems to be an integrative long-term approach that is still developing especially with the develop-ment of hierarchically subordinate sub ap-proaches. Action Theory still is more a heu-ristic broad- range framework than a final the-ory. … The integrative power of Action The-ory will bridge some interrelated gaps: the gap between cognition (and knowledge) and ac-tion, the gap between cognition and motivation (see goal orientation), and even the gap be-tween basic and more applied approaches (BERLYNE, D.E. 2006)

Our main research interest is bridging both gaps. The sum of all cognitions are determined by the mental ...