Perception refers to a way by virtue of which we interpret the information we sense. Brain

organizes the recieved information and translates it into something that we can make sense

through it. Our sense of reality makes us see the world the way we see it. If our perception is

skewed, we will misinterprete the information that we recieve even though our senses are keen.

A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception. Various factors in

perciever, situation and the target can distort the information that we recieve through our senses.

The personal attributes of the perciever influence him to perceive things differently. Factors such

as person's attitudes, motives, personality, expectations and past experiences influence

perception heavily. If someone has a family member who is a police officer and seems very

authorative then the chances are that he will percieve any other police officer to be also

authorative regardless of his cultural characteristics. Some other person might not have any

connection to police officer and they might not percieve him as authorative. If we expect fat

people to be lazy, or people sitting in office to be dishonest or immoral, then we might percieve

them as such regardless of their personalities. There is found very much Influence of expectation

on Perception. What we percieve is greately affected by the expectation of what we want to see.

In some cases, expectation can help us percieveing the information someone wants to send to us

because it allows the perceiver to focus their attention on some aspects of the information and

then the data is selected, classified and processed by understanding and naming it. Experiments

conducted by some researchers ( such as Minturn & Bruner, 1951) have shown that expectation

can help us understanding the information. For example,

In the above figure, there is written 13 in both the above and below lines but in above line 13 is

percieved as due to the context in which it appears. B is percieved due to the letter context while

13 is percieved due to the number context.

Traits of the target also affect the perception of the perciever greatly. People who have louder

voices can be noticed more in a party or a gathering than the people who are quiet ones or

introverts. In the same sense, more attractive people are noticed more than the people who are

less attractive. This is because the fact that targets alone are not given the importance but their

connection with the background also influences perception. For example, black people have

many characteristics that are different for each individual but due to the common color factor

they are percieved as persons of having almost the same characteristics. This also stands same

for the women, group members etc. Another factor, such as physical appearance, can also

determine the perception of the perciever. What the target is wearing makes us determine

whether the target is a person of importance or just any ordinary person. Height, weight, age etc.

influence the perception of the perciever about a target.

Context of an event is also very important and it influences the percption to a great extent. Time,

location, heat, and other situational factors influence attention of the perciever. For example, a 22

year old attractive woman might be unnoticed on a saturday night at a nightclub but that same

woman would definitely catch our attention in morning management class. Here the situation

changed from saturday night to the morning only but none of the perciever or the target changed,

yet the perception is different. Past experience about a situation also affects our perception. For

example, if I ride a bike and circle a particular object and if I slip, then whenever I go past this

place, it will make me nervous and very careful while riding on the bike. I might even percieve

other people at that spot in danger as my past experience with it has been very bad there.

Information percieved through senses is also greatly influnced by the culture. For example,

people from America and western cultures don't have as much ability as people from the other

parts of the world have, about percieving someone else's point of of view as their culture

promotes individualism. People from China, live in socities which encourage collectivist attitude

and they are more capable of understanding other individual's perception. This is all due to

culture. Other example can be that American mothers have the tendency to focus more on their

children's successes while Chinese mothers focus more on the discipline aspect. This changes the

perception of both mothers as American mother might percieve her child as smart while Chinese

mother may attribute kid's success to guess work.

We can avoid misperception by rationilizing ourselves and enhancing our perceptual skills. First

of all, we must try to know ourself (perciever) accurately, then we can see the things truely as the

perciever. Ability to put ourself into another's shoes very much influences our perceptions. We

must try to understand the target's position and his behavior. We must undertsand other's view

point and appreciate it. Maintaing a positive attitude, enhancing the self image and

communicating in an authentic way help us percieve the things as they truely are. We should

avoid the attributions and always trust each other. It can be concluded that knowledge of one's

own biases and an effort to overcome them will lead to a significant avoidance in misperception.

References