L8 - Perception Flashcards
How is Perception defined?
“the process of selecting, organising and interpreting information in order to make sense of the world around us”
(Bratton: 2010)
What are the main features of perception?
- Adapted from Mullins (2010)
Stimuli from the environment - Stage 1 –> Selecting of Stimuli screening or filtering
- Stage 2 –> Organisation and arrangement of stimuli –> Logic and meaning to the individual
- Stage 3 –> Pattern of behaviour
How can you cite the /Monkey Business illusion
- referred to Inattentional blindness, or perceptual blindness
- An experiment by Simons and Chabris (1999) demonstrated this: participants were asked to watch a video and count the number of times a basket ball was passed within the group; the participants concentrated on their task and failed to notice that a gorilla had appeared amongst the basketball players. What we don’t pay attention to, we can fail to notice entirely.
What are internal factors that affect your perceptions?
- motivation
- personality
- past experiences
- type of intelligence you have
- socialisation of our gender –> how we make sense of the world through the eyes of our gender
- age
What are external factors that affect your perceptions?
- education
- media
- peers
- family
- rarity –> things will stick out more than others
- religion
- ethnicity
What is framing?
- context can influences selection/attention
- … the ability to chose from stimuli, so that we concentrate on particular stimuli and ignore others
- this is called framing and framing theory suggests that how something is presented to the audience (called “the frame”) influences the choices people make about how to process that information.
- Perceptual threshold: the boundary between what we cannot detect
- Habituation: the decrease in our perceptual response to stimuli once they have become familiar
- Redundancy –> things are missing and we can still make out the full picture
How can context influence team workers?
- some people may not fit into one team as they actually have a different skill set to work with another
How do Organisations use the Ebbinghaus Illusion?
- The illiusion of two circle of the same size, however one is surrounded by larger circles and one is surrounded by small ones that gives the illusion of different sizes
- Organisations can use this principle by comparing their own organisational performance with organisations who are much weaker than them.
How does Cultural practices influence interpretation?
- certain hand gestures mean different things in different countries
- e.g. pointing with one finger is rude in japan and china
- losers sign meas 8 in china
What Factors affect out ‘selective attention’?
- the external factors of –> stimulus and context
- and the internal factors of –> expectations
How did (Buchanon and Huczynski, 2010) talk about reality?
- “The image of the world that we carry around inside our heads can only ever be a partial representation of what is ‘really out there’. This leads to the conclusion that our behavioural choices are determined not by reality, but by what we perceive that reality to be. Our perception is influenced by what are called perceptual filters.”
What influences of perception on how we relate to others?
- Our Attitude– how we react towards certain people.
- Our Behaviours– how receptive/friendly we are towards certain people.
- Our Attention– which aspects of a person we pay most attention to.
- Our ListeningSkills– how much we actively listen to what certain people say.
What are the Gestalt principles (1920)?
- We tend to organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes. Principles that explain this include: - Figure and ground - Closure/Reification - Continuation - Similarity and grouping
What is Figure and Ground of the Gestalt principles (1920)?
- The brain organises visual information into a figure (the centre of attention) and the ground (less distinct background). This illusion shows that the brain can only process one image as figure and one as ground one at a time. You should be able to see a vase or two heads facing each other; but you cannot see them at the same time because on will become figure and one background.
- So certain information comes to the figure and other information is left in the ground – this influences our perception. We might pay attention to financial aspects of a decision and in so doing neglect issues of quality.
What is Closure of the Gestalt principles (1920)?
- Our perception organises and interprets, using experience, not just visual information
- We fill in the gaps to make a whole meaning
- No lines are complete in this image – there are no actual triangles or circles – but our brains organise and interpret the shapes as whole shapes.
Marketing examples:
1. Some advertisers teach consumers a jingle or slogan through frequent repetition, then in subsequent ads, delete part of the jingle or slogan. This requires the audience to get involved with the message and complete it in their mind.
Ads that have questions lead the reader to answer the question
- Management decisions
e.g. A manager wants to identify why a team is successful. They don’t have information about all the team members but they have met two who are two strong performers, who have good relationships with customers; and that the team’s work work area is well-managed and organized. They might put all of this together and decide that the reasons for success are these two team members, their customer relationships and the way that these two particular team members have organized the work area. However, perhaps there were other reasons for the team’s success, such as a different team member taking the lead and coaching the two people the manager knows; perhaps the customer relationships are good because of issues outside of the team; and perhaps the work area is kept organized by everyone.
What is Continuation of the Gestalt principles (1920)?
- The human eye follows the paths, lines, and curves of a design, and prefers to see a continuous flow of visual elements rather than separated objects.
- Companies with long-running and continuous ad campaigns are better at building their brand, and better at ensuring consumers continue with the same message in their minds.
- e.g. Layout of retail / department stores: each department may have their own products but they are designed to follow the same continuous theme.
- e.g. advertisements that follow a story – continue a theme – connecting ideas across several ads.
- Related to decision-making:
To influence other’s views – we can create a strong line through an argument, so that what is most relevant is that strong line – not the various topics covered along the way.
What is Similarity and Grouping of the Gestalt principles (1920)?
- Gestalt laws of similarity and grouping: we look for similarities and then group according to sameness.
- E.G. When looking at a group of people, we are likely to group according to perceived sameness: gender, age, ethnicity….
- Organisations can use this Gestalt law to influence how customers perceive the organisation – that all their workers have the same good customer-service characteristics – through use of uniforms, the same approach to customers…. - Think of your favourite store – do you think about individuals or do you block them all together?
- And of course, if you think back to the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator – a personality profile) you will remember that different personality types will approach this task differently – some seeing the bigger pattern (iNtuitive) and some seeing the detailed shapes first (Sensing).
How does Gestalt’s Principles explain biased perceptions you have made or observed within your group?
- do you see the Self- Directed Learning group as an opportunity to help each other with the exams, future interview etc. or a discreet number of meetings which you focus on different things one by one
- figure and ground –> like each other, and dont pay attention to the irritating owes –> try to be more positive and optimistic –> what you decide to pay attention to
- focus on feedback instead of content
- Closure –> give a partial explanation and people will complete it –> people make it complete but can make it complete with the wrong information
- Continuation –> in the Self-Directed Learning Groups even if people dont turn up all the time, people are still turning up so there is still a sense of continuation as it looks at the group more than individual people
- Similarity and Grouping –> looking at patterns - seeing what other groups are doing and what is tended to work/not work
What is the Halo effect/Cognitive Bias (Thorndike, 1920)?
- According to The Cambridge Dictionary, the ‘Halo Effect’ describes the way in which our first impression of a person, based on a particular quality or feature, influences our opinion of his or her character.
- This means that you are likely to attribute positive traits – such as being intelligent, kind and trustworthy – to someone you immediately consider to be likeable. However, the ‘Halo Effect’ can also work in the opposite way, known as the ‘Horns Effect’.
What is the Horns effect/Cognitive Bias (Thorndike, 1920)?
- This occurs when a person’s initial feeling about someone is negative, and as such they tend to ignore any of their positive characteristics and concentrate only on the unfavourable ones.
