Perception and world interpretation

Human Perception: Your perceptual systems can sometimes lead you to misinterpret objects and situations. What are some things you can do to help yourself reduce such misjudgments?

The cliche is that 'seeing is believing.' But simply because the eyes may convince a person to believe something is true, does not mean that this apparently certain vision of veracity is a realistic reflection of a 'true' and objective reality. The most obvious example of the faulty nature of human perceptions is an optical illusion. A picture of an old woman, for instance, can also appear to be the portrait of a young woman, depending on how the viewer first glances at the picture. Another, more serious example of the faulty nature of human perception is the so-called 'Rashmon' effect, where several people see the same event, such as a car crash, yet perceive it differently, depending on their personal and perceptual biases.

The variety inherent in people's mental models for processing information in such different and apparently faulty ways stems "from several factors. First, the complexity of an organizational process colors how a mental model is developed." (Janz, Frolick, & Wetherbe, p.36) In other words, rather than contemplate new information as "it exists in reality" people will often construct a simplified representation of the event, image or task that is more congruent with their past perceptions of reality. (Janz, Frolick, & Wetherbe, p.36) All "processes tend to be biased by being thought of and treated the same," when "in fact they may actually be (and typically are) completely independent and quite different." (Janz, Frolick, & Wetherbe, p.36)

To combat this tendency to stereotype new people, places, and processes according to what is familiar requires a great deal of self-awareness about one's own past and the limits of one's subjective perceptions. An awareness of the different types of stereotyping that can affect perceptual bias is helpful. One such bias is known as the primacy effect, in which people tend to remember the first in a series of events. For example, two people may perceive a robbery quite differently. If one customer came into the store that was being held up in the middle of the crime, and another customer was there all along, and saw the thief before he became violent, the two customers might see the thief differently, one as more of a thug, the other as an ordinary and recognizable person who turned out to be a villain.

Another potential affect upon perception is the recency effect in which people tend to remember the most recent events that they see. What happened yesterday may be more vividly recalled than what happened two weeks ago -- an important thing to remember when evaluating eyewitness testimony in a courtroom. A last factor that affects the truth of human perceptions is the retrievability effect in which people tend to recall events that are vivid and specific. (Janz, Frolick, & Wetherbe, p.37) Suspending judgment is one way to counter both the primacy and recency effects and paying attention to all data can help make more data seem vivid and thus retrievable.

Self-awareness is not limited to understanding the general limits of human perceptions and the human brain. One must also be aware of one's stage of life and how that can bias one's perceptions. For example, older individuals tend to have better recall for long-past events that may seem more vivid than more recent events to younger individuals, and children may have very fluid conceptions of time and age. This is not limited to children, however. Just as twelve-year-old may seem old to a five-year-old, and a thirty-year-old may seem young to a sixty-year-old.