How many times in a day do you assume what you perceive is how it actually is? This is something we all do yet we should never assume that how we perceive something is the same way someone else perceives the same thing. It all comes across differently to each individual. How we perceive things influence the way we respond and communicate about the world. Our perceptions are influenced by our age, gender, genetics and experiences. Our identities, culture, history, and social events influence our perceptions as well.
To help us understand a little better, perception is a process of selection, organization and interpretation of information gathered through our senses. We then go through a selection process of choosing which sensory info to focus on. Then, consciously or unconsciously we focus on a narrow range of the full information coming in through our senses and we ignore the rest. We then organize the information we have. This is the process by which we recognize what the information represents. We then interpret and assign meaning to the sensory information.
The sensory information we focus on depends on the intensity, size, contrast, repetition, movement, etc. Negative comments that violate our expectations will be remembered more than other comments.
After we have meaning, we put it together in a picture that has meaning. Our brains are amazing to think all of this goes on within seconds as we communicate with one another!
There are four principles of organization into Schemas – these are templates which tell what information belongs together along with reading or understanding what we perceive.
Cognitive Representation – this is the ability to form mental models of the world. A good illustration of this is landmarks we use while driving. We also use maps that represent things but are not the actual thing.
Planning - the sequence of actions which will help us attain our goals
Interpersonal Scripts – this is a fixed sequence of events that become a guide to us.
Categorization – a cognitive process used to organize the information by placing it in into larger groupings of words that we use for the things we see around us. This also assigns labels and stereotyping.
Did you know our brains did all that when we communicate?
Alberts. Nakayama. Martin. Human Communication in Society: Communicating, Perceiving, & Understanding COMM 1080 reading