Introduction
Thinking is done effortlessly by most people and is often influenced by our emotions or stimulated by factors within our environment. Thinking is activated by the things people see, hear, taste, smell and feel and this reactive thinking is often void of logic or reasoning – a simple sensory reaction to stimuli. More than just a simple reaction to stimuli is perception, which is our sensory experience of the world around us and involves both the understanding of environmental stimuli and actions in response to these stimuli. Through the perceptual process, individuals acquire knowledge about our environment that is critical to our survival and perception not only creates our experience of the world around us; it allows us to act within our environment. Thinking that involves comprehending, analyzing, evaluating, internalizing and application, is described as Critical Thinking. Critical thinking occurs when individuals or groups seek logical, relevant and reliable knowledge and values about their environment. One of the bases of critical thinking is logic and logic is described as a perspective discipline which involves methods and principles used to distinguish correct from incorrect reasoning.
Perception
The environment or the world around us plays a vital role in developing or ability to think and think critically through exposure to and interaction with stimuli. Perception is the primary source of knowledge about the world around us. The perceptual process is hard to understand or identify as it takes place in the brain at a pre-conscious level of cognition. But somehow, it organizes the input such as sight, taste or smell into objects and events. For example, one may be able to tell, by ...