Lecture 5 - Perception Flashcards
perception
While information seems to enter our conscious minds without bias, our perception is not an objective lens
-perception is the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting information from our senses
Three steps of perception
- selection
- organization
- interpretation
1st step of perception - selection
- perception is an incomplete version of reality.
- selection involves focusing attention on certain sights, sounds, tastes, touches, or smells in our environment.
what kind of information do we tend to selectively pay attention to?
we tend to notice things which are:
- salient (outstanding)
- relevant to ourselves
- abnormal (out of our expectations)
- attractive
2nd step of perception - organization
- usually happens unconsciously
- it involves structuring the information you have selected into a coherent pattern in your mind
What are the three ways to organize the information?
- organization by rules
- organization be schema (schemata)
- organization by script
organization by rules (1st way to organize)
- Punctuation
- Proximity / Physical closeness
- Similarity
Punctuation (organization by rules)
we structure the selected information into a chronological sequence that matches how you experienced the order of events
Proximity / Physical closeness (organization by rules)
we group the information that are physically close to each other
Similarity (organization by rules)
We group information into categories of items that share something similar
organization be schema (schemata) (2nd way to organize)
Schemata: mental structures that contain information defining the characteristics of various concepts
-schemata enables us to organize and classify information and stimuli into manageable groups or categories
(we have different schemata depending on our culture)
ex: chair and phone example
organization by script (3rd way to organize)
- script: an organized body of information about some action, event or procedure
- developed form your experiences
ex: first day of class
3rd step of perception - interpretation
- as we organize information we selected into a coherent mental model, we also engage in interpretation, assigning meaning to that information
- it is a process we compare our current perceptions with knowledge we already possess.
- inevitably subjective and greatly influenced by our experiences, needs, values, expectations, emotional state, etc
How we interpret information?
- expectancy
- using familiar information (schemata)
- Attributions/inferences
expectancy (how we interpret information)
we interpret information based on what we expect to perceive
using familiar information -schemata (how we interpret information)
Our sense-making also relies on schemata.
- Self-schemata – knowledge that you know about yourself. (ex: I’m allergic to seafood but love dessert so I make decision based on that information)
- Event schemata (script) - certain procedure that you need to follow (if you want to dine in a restaurant)
- Role schemata (stereotypes) – for a group of people
- Person schemata – for a particular person that you know (ex: her husband is not romantic so she doesn’t expect a gift from him on their anniversary)
Attributions/inferences (how we interpret information)
we create explanations for other’s comments or behaviors
- internal attributions
- external attributions
internal vs external attributions
-Internal attributions: Personalities; outcomes form internal factors.
Sometimes we are trying to figure out the cause and what leads to this outcome. Something the person can control. Ex: their personality.
-External attributions: outcome is caused external (environment) and people don’t have control over it. Ex: weather
-kind of like nature vs. nurture
Memory/Recall
- stored perceptions and their interpretations and evaluations for later recall
- your eyes deceive
- deja vu
deja vu (memory/recall) - reproductive and reconstructive memory
- reproductive memory – memory we really have that we retrieve from our minds; we recall memory
- reconstructive memory – we don’t have the memory there; but instead we make up the memory; we thought it was our memory but we are really constructing memory
