CH 5 BBA

CH:5 PERCEPTION

By Sidra Farooq Butt

What is Perception? When we select, organize, and interpret

our sensations, the process is called perception.

process of selecting, organizing, & interpreting sensory information into meaningful patterns

3 Facts  Influencing PerceptionThe Perceiver – attitudes, motives,

interests, experiences, expectationsThe Target – novelty, motions, sounds,

size, background, proximity, similarity

The Situation – time, work setting, social situation

Kinds of perception1: Visual perception Refers to processing of visual information that

we gain through our eye sight.  Its helpful in spelling, mathematics, and

reading.  Visual perceptual deficits may lead

to difficulties in learning, recognizing, and remembering letters and words, learning basic mathematical concepts and poor handwriting.

Visual perception

What is the top, bottom, or back of this cube?

Is this a young woman looking over her right shoulder, or an older woman looking downward?

When viewing these figures, your visual sensory system receives an assortment of light waves = sensation. Interpreting the lines as a cube or an old/young woman = perception.

The flower on the left is what we normally see. The one on the right, photographed under ultraviolet light, is what we think most animals & insects see.

©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010

The Muller-Lyer Illusion Which vertical line is longer?

Color BlindnessGenetic disorder in which people are blind

to green or red colors.

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2 :Auditory perception• It is the ability to perceive and

understand sounds• Deafness describes a condition in which

individuals have no auditory perception; deaf individuals are not capable of perceiving or interpreting sounds.

• Different animals can perceive different sounds; dogs, for example, are capable of perceiving very high-pitched sounds that humans cannot perceive.

• Auditory discrimination is the process by which one is able to note the differences between sounds; Discrimination between foreground and background is also an important part of auditory discrimination. It is important to be able to focus on important noises and to ignore irrelevant and unimportant noises so that one is not overwhelmed by a vast amount of noise. 

Cocktail party effectThis was carried out by Colin Cherry in 1953In a room where several conversations are taking place, one can focus on one of them and ignore the  rest: the cocktail party effect.

Experiment This was dichotic listening experiment.

Participants listen to a headset with 2 different channels; one in each ear. They are asked to shadow (i.e. repeat back) the message reaching one ear and report it while ignoring the other. Dichotic listening experiments were used to demonstrate that people can only do one thing at a time, even when they appear to be doing two.

He found that we use the physical characteristics of the stimuli, e.g. the intensity, pitch, loudness and source of message to separate the wanted and unwanted messages.

For example, we typically have no trouble when told "only listen to the female voice/the low pitched voice/quieter voice".

However when the different messages played in each ear were spoken by the same voice (they had the same physical characteristics), participants found it almost impossible to distinguish between the two.

3: Spatial perception It is the ability to perceive the world in

three dimensions(3D) and to accurately judge the distance of an object.

spatial perception is the ability to make sense of what is seen. It is the relationship between the position of two or more objects in relation to each other, and in relation to one’s self. The ability to successfully perceive how one object relates to another object .

Children who have impaired spatial perception skills may have trouble distinguishing symbols and shapes and the direction those objects are facing. They may also have trouble judging heights and distances, so they may seem clumsy.

Types of Spatial perception:

Perception of distance Perception of depth

Depth Perception:

ability to perceive three dimensional space & accurately judge distance

©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2010

(Depth Perception)

Depth PerceptionDepth perception enables us to judge distances. Gibson

and Walk (1960) suggested that human infants (crawling age) have depth perception. infants hesitate to crawl over the glass, demonstrating some depth perception

Even newborn animals show depth perception.

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Perception of motion Motion perception is the process of

inferring the speed and direction of objects that move in a visual scene given some visual input.

The Phi phenomenon is perceiving of continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession. The phenomenon was defined by Max Wertheimer (Gestalt Psychology)

Extrasensory Perception (ESP): Fact or Fallacy?

Perception without sensory input is called extrasensory perception (ESP). A large percentage of scientists do notBelieve in ESP.

Parapsychology: Study of ESP and other phenomena (events that seem to defy accepted scientific laws)

Clairvoyance: Purported ability to perceive events unaffected by distance or normal physical barriers Perception of remote events, such as sensing a friend’s house on fire

Telepathy: Purported ability to read someone else’s mind One person sending thoughts and the other receiving them.

Precognition: Purported ability to accurately predict the future events, such as a political leader’s death.

Psychokinesis (Mind Over Matter): Purported ability to influence inanimate objects by willpower

Frequently Used Shortcuts in Judging Others

Selective PerceptionThe tendency to screen out information with which we are not

comfortable or that we do not consider relevant.People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their

interest, background, experience, and attitudes.

Halo Effect(1st impression) Drawing a general impression about an individual on the

basis of a single characteristic.The halo effect is a psychological phenomenon that allows a general opinion of something, or someone, to be gathered

from one element. For example, if a chef is famous for making one particular dish, then the halo effect allows people to assume that he can cook anything with equal proficiency

StereotypingJudging someone on the basis of one’s perception

of the group to which that person belongs.For example:All Arabs and Muslims are terrorists.

ProjectionAttributing one’s own

characteristics to other people

Culture and perception Laughing is connoted in most countries with happiness - in Japan it

is often a sign of confusion, insecureness and embarrassment. In Mediterranean European countries, Latin America and Sub

Saharan Africa, it is normal, or at least widely tolerated, to arrive half an hour late for a dinner invitation, whereas in Germany and Switzerland this would be extremely rude.

If invited to dinner, in many Asian countries and Central America it is well-mannered to leave right after the dinner: the ones who don’t leave may indicate they have not eaten enough. In the Indian Sub-Continent, European and North American countries this is considered rude, indicating that the guest only wanted to eat but wouldn’t enjoy the company with the hosts.

In Africa, saying to a female friend one has not seen for a while that she has put on weight means she is physically healthier than before or had a nice holiday, whereas this would be considered as an insult in Europe, North America and Australia.

Perception organization Figure ground stimulus stands out as a figure (object) against a lessprominent background (ground)Figure and ground that can be reversed

A reversible figure-ground design. Do you see two faces in profile or a vase?

Similarity grouping of same things ,Stimuli that are

similar in size, shape, color, or form tend to be grouped together

Proximity nearness i.e. near objects are grouped together ClosureTendency to fill gaps or to complete a figure

so that it has a consistent overall form