Perception – discrimination

Perceptual discrimination is the act of distinguishing between different items that are in the perceptual field.  In this post, part of my series on perception, I will look at barcode scanning to illustrate what discrimination is, and its role.  And I will use this example to further clarify the distinction between direct perception and indirect perception, at least as I use those terms.

These days, we see bar codes on many of the items that we purchase.  And the store clerk typically uses a scanner to read that bar code and identify which item we are purchasing.