Perception model: starting with imagination
This is a simple model of human perception. It is just for workshop use as a framework for discussions.
It centers human experience in imagination but the model can be accessed at any point: it is a cycle. I prefer to start with imagination as I like to center human capacity on our hopes, aspirations and dreams.
This model ignores something very important (as it is only for the first part of a workshop). It ignores emotion and how emotions coat all our experiences.
Imagination and emotion are hugely important to being human. We are not simply sensing and reacting.
We dream, we hope, we aspire.
These dreams affect how we predict what we can do and perceive the world in which we can take action. To understand user behaviour, you need to ask about what people imagine. Too often these hopes (and fears) are dismissed as lies (compared to the actions that people actually take). However, the actions taken are framed within the boundaries of perceptions that are set by imagination and mental models.
This is also about Free Will and the Libet idea that it does not exist. Only if you choose to freeze particular moments in the cycle is that true. Accepting the totality means Free Will exists because our consciousness drifts so far beyond action thru imagination. The choices we end up making and the actions we take may be held within boundaries that seem to deny Free Will but choosing to only to attend to those moments is to ignore the full breadth and depth of being human.
