what we see, how are we able to communicate with one another about anything? These are some of the questions we address in this chapter.
Perception of the Self, Others, and Experience
How we perceive ourselves, others, and experience influences all we say and do. Perception, self-concept, and communication are intertwined, interacting with and influencing one another. Two or more people will not necessarily perceive you similarly. In fact, many of them may not see you as you see yourself. For example, when one consultant asked a group of college students to select a word representing how employers perceived them, she told the students that the word she was looking for began with the letter e. What word would you have selected? Students, believing that employers viewed them positively, suggested answers such as enthusiastic and energetic. The correct answer was entitled. 2
The meanings we form, and the messages we send to others about what we see and how we think, shape their understanding of us. Similarly, how you perceive yourself affects your relationship with yourself. What words would you select to describe that relationship? Do your chosen words suggest you feel good about yourself? If not, what is it about your perception of you that keeps you from doing so?
People living in different countries, the members of different generations, and the members of different genders, races, religions, or classes (just to name a few demographic categories) also tend to perceive things differently. They have different opinions about many things, including the alt-right, same-sex marriage, transgender people, immigration, human rights, and the news media. By exploring the “I” behind the eye, we will come to better understand why each of us is much more than a camera and why the “I” of the perceiver makes such a big difference.
What is Perception?
Perception is the complex process we use to make experience our own. Thus, what actually occurs in the “real world” may be quite different from what we perceive. We define perception as the process of selecting, organizing, subjectively interpreting, retrieving, and responding to sensory data in a way that enables us to make sense or meaning of our world. Our physical location, interests, personal desires, attitudes, values, personal experiences, physical condition, and psychological states interact to influence our perceptions.
Perception Occurs in Stages
Perception involves a series of stages: (1) the selecting stage, during which we attend to only some stimuli from all those to which we are exposed; (2) the organizing stage, during which we give order to the selected stimuli; (3) the interpreting/evaluating stage, during which we make sense of or give meaning to the stimuli we have selected and organized based on our life experiences; (4) the retrieving stage, during which we use our memory to recall related information; and (5) the responding stage, during which we decide what to think, say, or do as a result of what we have perceived (Figure 3.1).
Figure 3.1
Perception is Selective and Personal
Our senses function as perceptual antennae gathering information at all times, which makes it impossible for us to process every stimulus available to us. Without realizing it, we take steps to select or limit what we perceive. According to information theorists, the eye processes about 5 million bits of data per second. The brain, however, is able to use only some 500 bits per second. Therefore, we are forced to select those stimuli that we will attend to or experience. We combat data overload by simply not assimilating large amounts of data, focusing instead on the data we want for closer and more careful viewing. Effectively, attention helps us focus. We shift our searchlight of attention from one person, place, or thing to another, until one catches our interest, transforming our perceptual searchlight into a perceptual spotlight that we now focus on a selected stimulus.3
As we saw in Figure 3.1, selection is a key part of the perception process. We use selective perception—an aspect of the perceptual process that includes selective exposure (the tendency to expose oneself to information that reaffirms existing attitudes, beliefs, and values; the tendency to close oneself to new experiences), selective attention (the tendency to focus on certain cues or stimuli and ignore others), and selective retention (the tendency to remember those things that reinforce one’s way of thinking and forget those that do not).
Effects of Selectivity
Selective perception enables us to create a more limited and also a more coherent and personally meaningful picture of the world, one that conforms to the beliefs, expectations, and convictions we hold. For example, in a famous experiment, subjects were shown a short video of two teams, one wearing white shirts and the other in black shirts, moving around and passing basketballs to one another. The subjects were asked to count the number of passes made by members of the white team. Halfway through the video, a person wearing a full-body gorilla-suit walks slowly to the middle of the screen, pounds its chest, and walks out of the frame. While consumed with counting passes, about 50% of the subjects missed the gorilla. Their mental spotlight had been directed elsewhere. They were not looking for a gorilla, so they didn’t see one.4
© 1999, Daniel J. Simons. Video screenshot taken at http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/videos.html
Perceptual processes are not only highly selective, they also are personally based. As a result, different people experience the same cues in very different ways. In essence, we never really come into direct contact with reality.5 Instead, everything we experience is mediated by the nervous system.
Age and Memory Influence Perception
Age can influence perception. The aging brain consumes and processes more data, sifting through larger amounts of information than the brains of traditional college-aged students. Students this age are more able to ignore distractions, whereas older people, because of their reduced ability to filter, exhibit more inclusive attention. As a result, older people tend not to make snap judgments regarding what is or could become important. This frees them to learn more about situations and people—giving them a potential perceptual advantage.6
Memory and perception are also linked. Earlier perceptions influence future ones.7 How we interpret and respond to selected stimuli determines if a particular person or experience enters our memory. If a perception does enter our memory, we are able to retrieve and use it again and again.
A reliable memory, however, depends on whether our reconstruction of experience is accurate and clear.8 Our perceptual abilities, distorted by our beliefs, desires, and interests, affect how we interpret and remember events.9 For example, although it occurred in 2001, many of us still have vivid memories of 9/11. In interviews, when asked to recall those memories, people spoke of having watched television all morning, riveted by images of the two planes striking the twin towers. This memory was, in fact, false. There was no video of the first plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Despite this reality, 73% of Americans surveyed said they saw this happen. What’s more, they felt confident about their memories.
Memories of events that did not actually
