Forming a Perception

Forming a

The perception process is a sequence of steps that begins with receiving stimuli from the environment and ends with your interpretation of those stimuli.

The process of forming a perception has three stages:

  1. Selection
  2. Organization
  3. Interpretation

 

Forming a Perception

Overview of Perception Process

  1. You receive sensory information from the environment through your five senses
  2. That sensory information is sent to your , where you organize the information by connecting it with similar information already stored.
  3. After you organize the information, you interpret it to make it meaningful.

 

 

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Perception

Forming a Perception

Influences on Perception

Forming a Perception Process

Stage 1 – Stimuli Selection

The process of forming a perception begins with your sensory experience of the world around you. This stage involves the recognition of environmental stimuli provided through your five senses. You see, hear, smell, taste, or feel stimuli that impact your senses. Each sense is part of your sensory system which receives sensory information and transmits it to your brain. You use that information to begin to construct a perception.

 

Attention is a vital factor in the perception process. In order to perceive something, it first must come to your attention. If you do not attend to specific stimuli, then you cannot perceive it.

Attention

The world around you is filled with an infinite number of stimuli. There is too much stimuli for your brain to process it all. So you select what to pay attention. What you select and attend to, you are able to send to your brain for processing. However, if you do not attend to specific stimuli, it will never be sent to your brain for processing.

What you select to attend to depends on several factors including:

  • Intensity (e.g. someone yelling or a loud noise)
  • Repetition (i.e. sensing the same stimuli over and over)
  • Change in stimuli (e.g. hot to cold)
  • Intentions (i.e. what you intend to pay attention to)

 

Stage 2 – Organization

Organization is the stage where selected stimulus information must be arranged in some meaningful way to make sense to you.

Once you have chosen to attend to a stimulus in the environment, you send that stimulus information to your brain to try to make sense of it. That new information is then compared against and combined with previous knowledge you have constructed about the world.

Organizing Preceptions

 

In order to quickly disseminate large amounts of new information, your brain organizes it by familiar components. Therefore, when the sensory information is received in your brain, you begin to organize the new information by connecting it with similar information already stored. Connecting familiar components with past experiences helps you understand what is happening in the world around you.

 

Stage 3 – Interpretation

Interpretation involves taking the information you have sensed and organized and turning it into something that you can understand.

Perception Interpretation

 

Once you have selected and organized your perceptions, you interpret it in a way that makes sense using your existing information about the world. Essentially, you are making it into something meaningful. You smell an aroma and recognize it as a rose, or you see a round object and recognize it as a soccer ball.

 

Biases and Influences

The interpretation stage is where you construct your biases.   You apply values and judgments to what you sense. You relate past experiences, beliefs, values, assumptions, and expectations to interpret the information. You see a vegetable and think it is healthy for you, or you see a chocolate bar and think that it should taste good.

How you interpret information is influenced by a variety of factors including:

  • Past experiences
  • Assumptions and Expectations
  • Character traits
  • Childhood upbringing
  • Self-concept
  • Culture
  • Faith
  • Values
  • Preconceived notions
  • Present circumstances

 

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