Essay Sample on Categorical Perception

Introduction

Categorical perception is a phenomenon of perception concerning distinct categories in an occurrence where there is a gradual change in variable along a continuum. Originally, the categorical perception was termed for auditory stimuli; however, it is now found to apply to other perceptual modalities. Due to categorical perception, it could be challenging for various individuals to discriminate similar surrounding words or terms such as phonemes (Goldstone & Hendrickson, 2010).

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Moreover, in differentiating between categorical identification and categorical discrimination, they are both used in defining categorical perception. Categorical identification is a continuum of two stimuli (for example /r/ and /w/). There is the inclusion of a rapid shift between two stimuli as the individual completing the task ought to determine whether the stimuli being presented is one of the two stimuli (such as speech sounds). As for categorical discrimination, there is also a continuum of two stimuli. The involved individual in the task needs to distinguish between o0ne stimulus and similar stimuli. In either of the case, it means responding to only certain stimuli. Correspondingly, the personal experimental results for both demonstrations follow patterns similar to the predicted experimental results whereby in experiments concerning categorical discrimination, sounds on one of the side are heard almost universally (for example /p/or b/). On the other hand, categorical discrimination experiments deliver a chance for stimuli to fall on opposite sides of the boundary. Thus, elaborating on the relationship between personal experiments and predicted experimental results.

Since categorical judgment affirms or denies an occurrence, there are various situations that one could be forced to make a definite judgment. Numerous professionals and jobs such as safety inspectors, quality inspectors, loan managers, judges, and teachers often make a definite judgment concerning something that falls on a continuum. For example, a judge is accustomed to determine the innocence or the guilt of the defendant; however, an individual's innocence or guilt is not always defined transparently. In the categorization of this occurrence, a judge the innocence and guilt fall on a continuum, and in some of the cases, it is difficult to determine where to draw the line between either of the two.

Moreover, categorical speech perception is significant and useful for various reasons. From the fact that speech entails a lot of variabilities, this creates importance for categorical speech perception (Bidelman, Moreno & Alain, 2013). For example, in the case of native communication, the speakers deliver different accents, the speech from a man is different from the speech of a male, and the timing of an individual's speech differs from one individual to the other. Therefore, with the extreme variability is speech, it is helpful that a wide range of sound or speech are all perceived similarly since it limits the ambiguity that may be present.

The statement concerning the occurrence that experience and training can affect an individual's ability to make perceptual discriminations is right, and I agree with the detail. For example, children are born with the ability to distinguish between every phoneme. However, as they grow older, they are only able to differentiate between the phonemes of their native language. Additionally, considering the occasion whereby individuals who become fluent is a second language are capable of distinguishing and defining the speech or sounds that are used in the second languages compared to a non-speaker (Altmann et al., 2014). Thus, elaborating on the reasons as to why I agree with the statement.

References

Altmann, C. F., Uesaki, M., Ono, K., Matsuhashi, M., Mima, T., & Fukuyama, H. (2014). Categorical speech perception during active discrimination of consonants and vowels. Neuropsychologia, 64, 13-23.

Bidelman, G. M., Moreno, S., & Alain, C. (2013). Tracing the emergence of categorical speech perception in the human auditory system. Neuroimage, 79, 201-212.

Goldstone, R. L., & Hendrickson, A. T. (2010). Categorical perception. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 1(1), 69-78.