Sensory cognition: concept, examples, types, meaning

Greetings, friends!

Throughout their lives, people develop connections with other members of society and their environment, constantly making sense of what they see and hear. By understanding and comprehending the world around them, people are able to harmoniously integrate into nature and society. In epistemology (the branch of philosophy that studies cognition), there are two types of cognition: rational and sensual. In this article you will learn what sensory cognition is, how it manifests itself, what stages it consists of, and what forms and types of sensory cognition exist. Let's start with the definition.

What is sensory knowledge?

Sensory cognition is a type of cognition based on the perception of the surrounding world using the senses. Traditionally, this type of cognition is opposed to thinking, which is a secondary method of cognition of reality. And the human senses are responsible for the formation of initial knowledge about the environment, as well as about the appearance and structure of the objects filling it. The five basic human senses are sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.

Full knowledge of the world through the senses is inherent only in humans, although animals also use their senses to gain the necessary knowledge about the environment, but to a much lesser extent than people who are more biosocial by nature. At the same time, full knowledge of the world cannot be based solely on feelings; it is inseparable from rational thinking , without which a person will not be able to understand the essence of the phenomena and objects around him.

Stages of sensory cognition

Modern science divides the cognitive process into several stages.

The first stage of cognition is characterized by a kind of “imprinting” into the human psyche of knowledge about the appearance of various things;
At the second stage, which is the comprehension of the surrounding reality, people form the necessary knowledge and judgments about it.
The third stage includes the formation of stable and well-founded knowledge about the world around us, followed by a person’s interpretation of the feelings that initially arose in his mind.

Imagination

As stated above, imagination plays a very important role in the process of representation. It is thanks to imagination that our sensations acquire meaning that you understand. But imagination itself is not a product of the activity of the senses. Imagination is a product of transformation of the functional characteristics of display.

Photo by Kevin Bidwell from Pexels

If you look at geometric shapes drawn on paper, without imagination they will just be shapes to you. But as soon as you use your imagination, which is based on your knowledge and experience, the figure immediately becomes three-dimensional.

Features of sensory cognition

The described type of cognition is based solely on perception and sensations, which allows us to identify several features that are characteristic only of it:

knowledge of the world through feelings is the connecting link between man and the world of objects;
this type of cognition is often referred to as “passive”;
it is sensory cognition that is the main and most important element of cognition of culture, since information received by a person through the senses is perceived by him as unconditionally corresponding to reality;
This type of cognition is capable of recording exclusively a “material”, objective picture of the world, information about which is provided to our brain by the senses. Therefore, in order to obtain a complete picture of objective reality, a person needs to bring his own cognitive activity to the next level - to the level of rational (from the Latin word ratio - i.e. reason) knowledge.

Exercise

Establish the correspondence between mental processes and their characteristics:

a) Sensation

b) Perception

as a result, an image of the object appears;
as a result, a differentiated feeling arises;
associated with the complex work of analyzers;
associated with the operation of individual analyzers.

1	2	3	4
b	A	b	A

1. The image of an object is formed only by the totality of its characteristics, i.e. perception.

2. A differentiated feeling can arise when individual properties of an object are reflected, therefore, the correct answer is sensation.

3. The complex work of analyzers allows you to form an image of an object, which is the result of perception.

4. Individual analyzers can provide a characteristic of only a separate property of an object; this is the result of the sensation process.

Forms of sensory knowledge

In sensory cognition, three levels are distinguished, the purpose of which is to prepare the individual for the transition to a higher stage of cognitive activity associated with abstraction. The main forms of this type of cognition include:

Sensations, which are the initial level of cognition. This level of sensory cognition provides people with only an initial and one-sided understanding of objects, such as their appearance, smell, and taste.
At the stage of perception, there is a certain accumulation of knowledge acquired by the individual earlier through sensations, which allows the person to form a fairly complete image of the object in his mind.
At the final stage, representation, the images perceived from outside begin to be independently reproduced in the brain, creating a visual and meaningful picture of reality.

However, knowing the world through feelings is not capable of revealing the essence of phenomena occurring in the world - this level of cognitive activity is more complex, it requires the individual to use logic, analysis and rational thinking. Thus, only by combining living contemplation of the surrounding reality with abstract thinking will a person have the opportunity to fully understand the world around him.

Performance

Photo by Masha Raymers: Pexels
The way you imagine life around you and the way you see this world is your idea. First of all, everything unfolds in your mind. Everything you remember is your imagination.

So, your memories of childhood are only certain images that have undergone abstraction on your part. What you remember is definitely not what actually happened. Therefore, people often remember the same event in different ways. You pass it through the prism of your own experience, knowledge, sensations.

Your imagination plays a very important role in the presentation process. Your idea of the world is also built on its basis.

Types of sensory cognition

The sensory type of cognition is based on the work of sensory analyzers and the human sensory system as a whole. Nowadays science identifies the following types of sensory perception:

visual;
auditory;
tactile;
taste;
through smell;
using the vestibular apparatus.

In addition, sometimes intuition is classified as a type of sensory cognition, losing sight of the fact that intuition does not start from logic and is not based on sensations. In essence, intuition can be attributed to a separate, very unique form of cognition, combining both rational and irrational principles.

↑ Intuition

Cognition cannot be reduced only to sensations and thinking.
Intuition occupies an important place in the process of cognition, as well as in creativity. Intuition

- direct comprehension of the truth as a result of “insight”, sudden understanding without direct reliance on logical proof, rational thinking.

Both the scientists and thinkers of the ancient world (Plato, Aristotle) and the present time attached great importance to intuition in knowledge. Intuition uses the data of sensory knowledge, but is not it. Intuition is not rational knowledge, since reason does not directly involve logic.

The meaning of sensory knowledge

The appearance in the consciousness of a visual, sensory image is preceded by a certain impact on the senses, and through them - on the human nervous system of a certain object of the material world, acting as an external stimulus. But mere influence on the senses is not enough for the emergence of a comprehensive image, since any cognition requires at least minimal activity. And therefore, the senses must actively participate in the exploration of a new thing through straining vision, hearing and smell, feeling the contours of an unknown object, etc.

The sensory type of cognition refers to the primary sources of a person’s acquaintance with the outside world. As mentioned above, full-fledged cognition is closely related to thinking and the creation in the brain of rationally and logically based images that complement the picture of the world provided to people by their senses.

A sensory image reflecting a material object is not a symbol of this object, but only represents its exact copy, generated by one or more sense organs. This image also has objective and subjective sides - it is objective in terms of its own content and subjective, since it exists as a visual image in the mind of a particular individual , created on the basis of his perception of the surrounding reality. In addition, sensory knowledge also has certain boundaries, which a person can go beyond only with the help of rational thinking.

Bibliography

General psychology: cognitive processes: textbook / V.M. Kozubovsky. — 3rd ed. - Minsk: Amal-feya, 2008. - 368 p.
Kravchenko A.I. Psychology and pedagogy: Textbook. - M.: INFRA-M, 2008. - 400 p. - (Higher education).
Electronic resource: https://repository.vzfei.ru
Electronic resource: https://ru.wikipedia.org

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The connection between rational and sensory cognition

So, the sensory type of cognition has its own boundaries, outlined, on the one hand, by the nature and physiology of man, on the other hand, by the openness and suitability of sensory cognition only for studying the external aspects of objects, but by the impossibility of studying with its help the patterns associated with their emergence and development . For a deeper knowledge of the world, feelings must always be supplemented by logic and rational thinking.

The rational type of cognition differs from the sensory type in that it is more general and indirect in the process of studying the environment. It is based on abstraction and generalization, which allows a person operating with this method of cognition to derive clear and understandable general patterns.

For this reason, rational knowledge helps a person to explore much deeper and more fully not only the external, but also the deep essence of the environment, form his own judgments and make independent, logically sound conclusions about what is happening around him. At the same time, rational knowledge complements and improves the knowledge acquired by man through the senses, acting as a factor in the development and transformation of the world.

Both ways of cognition (sensual and rational) are inseparable from each other. Despite significant differences, they are two closely interconnected sides of a single process, the development of which is possible only with their mutual complement.

conclusions

In the recent past, scientists attributed sensory cognition to the lowest level of human thinking. This conclusion was justified by the fact that an individual who knows the world only through feelings is guided exclusively by instincts. But modern philosophy looks at the sensory type of cognition from a different angle, linking together both sensory and rational methods of studying the surrounding reality, and also recognizing feelings as a kind of foundation for more detailed and logic-based cognitive activity.