One of the greatest influences on the concept of perception was made by Gestalt psychologists and their viewpoint of the mind as holistic, constructing wholes (perception) from parts (sensory information from the external world). The combination of Aristotle's bottom-up, sensory driven empiricism and Plato's top-down, rationalism proved to be a starting point for what we now understand to be the product of perception. Our minds constant filter information from the outside world, whether we are aware of it or not. It is the cognitive process of attention that determines which information we should be immediately and consciously aware of and which information we can subconsciously store for later processing. Indeed, attention has a large role in shifting out focus to our conscious awareness. The debate about the nature of consciousness can be traced to Descartian thought in his theory of methodological doubt that stated that all we can know is consciousness. However, current neurophysiological research is working hard to better understand consciousness, even when it resides in someone else's head!

1) Briefly, discuss how visual information is processed in the brain.

2) Summarize how the sense of hearing and its sensory information is organized into perceptual and recognizable pattern.

3) How do cultural and societal expectations and/or experiences influence the formation of perception?

Minimum of one scholarly source to support your answer and cited with an APA format