Perception and Communication Chapter 3 Perception and Communication

Topics covered The Process of Human Perception Influences on Perception Social Media and Perception Guidelines for Improving Perception and Communication

After studying… Recognize how perception is made up of means of selecting, organizing, and interpreting the world to create meaning. Identify factors that affect individuals’ perceptions. List examples of the reciprocal relationship between your perceptions and social media.

In everyday communication, our words affect how we perceive others, situations, events, behaviors, and ourselves. At the same time, our perceptions shape what things mean to us and hence the labels we use to name them. We communicate with others according to how we perceive and define them, and we may miss opportunities when our labels limit what we perceive.

The Process of Human Perception Perception: the active process of creating meaning by selecting, organizing, and interpreting people, objects, events, situations and other phenomena Note that perception is defined as an active process. We do not passively receive what is “out there” in the external world.

They are; continuous, so they blend into one another. also interactive, so each of them affects the other two. For example, what we select to perceive in a particular situation affects how we organize and interpret the situation. At the same time, how we organize and interpret a situation affects our subsequent selections of what to perceive in the situation.

Selection We select to attend to certain stimuli based on a number of factors: The qualities of the phenomena Self-indication Our motives and needs Culture

Which of the following is most distracting to drivers? a. Listening to an audiotape b. Talking on a hand-held phone c. Using a speech-to-text system d. Talking on a hands-free phone When drivers need to concentrate on a task such as posting on Facebook, they are prone to inattention blindness, which is the tendency not to see what is right in front of them.

Organization Constructivism – we organize and interpret experience by applying cognitive structures called schemata Prototype Personal construct Stereotype Script

Interpretation The subjective process of explaining our perceptions in ways that make sense to us Attributions Locus Stability Specificity Responsibility

Interpretation Attributional Errors Self-serving bias Fundamental attribution error

Influences On Perception Physiology Age Expectations Culture Social location Roles

Influences On Perception Continued Cognitive abilities Cognitive complexity Person-centeredness Self

Implicit Personality Theory A collection of unspoken and sometimes unconscious assumptions about how various qualities fit together in human personalities

Guidelines for Improving Perception And Communication Recognize that all perceptions are partial and subjective Avoid mind reading Check perceptions with others Distinguish between facts and inferences Guard against the self-serving bias Guard against the fundamental attribution error Monitor labels