1. Human Perception: Selection
Attention: What you attend to
Perception: How you interpret
Retention: What you remember
“Self-fulfilling prophecy:” Acting in ways that confirm your (or others) expectations

2. Which way is the door swinging?

3. Human Perception: Interpretation
the concept of constructivism: “...we organize and interpret experience by applying cognitive structures call schemata.”
Prototypes: clear representative examples
Personal constructs: bipolar dimensions
Stereotypes: predictive generalizations
Scripts: guides to actions based on personal knowledge (experience and observation)

5. Human Perception: Interpretation
Attributions: causal accounts that explain why things happen and why people behave the way they do
Self-Serving Bias: we construct attributions that serve our personal interests

6. Human Perception: Influences
Physiology
Culture: “…beliefs, values, understandings, practices, and ways of interpreting experience that are shared by a number of people.”
Social Roles: “…that others communicate to us.”
Cognitive Abilities: Complexity? Person-Perception v. Empathy

7. Human Perception: Competence
Recognize all perceptions are subjective
Avoid mindreading by actively check perceptions
1. Describe what you are noticing
2. Ask what it means
Distinguish between fact and inference
Monitor the Self-Serving Bias