Perception refers to a way by virtue of which we interpret the information we sense.

Brain
organizes the recieved information and translates it into something that we can make sense
through it. Our sense of reality makes us see the world the way we see it. If our perception is
skewed, we will misinterprete the information that we recieve even though our senses are keen.
A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception. Various factors in
perciever, situation and the target can distort the information that we recieve through our senses.
The personal attributes of the perciever influence him to perceive things differently. Factors such
as person's attitudes, motives, personality, expectations and past experiences influence
perception heavily. If someone has a family member who is a police officer and seems very
authorative then the chances are that he will percieve any other police officer to be also
authorative regardless of his cultural characteristics. Some other person might not have any
connection to police officer and they might not percieve him as authorative. If we expect fat
people to be lazy, or people sitting in office to be dishonest or immoral, then we might percieve
them as such regardless of their personalities. There is found very much Influence of expectation
on Perception. What we percieve is greately affected by the expectation of what we want to see.
In some cases, expectation can help us percieveing the information someone wants to send to us
because it allows the perceiver to focus their attention on some aspects of the information and
then the data is selected, classified and processed by understanding and naming it. Experiments
conducted by some researchers ( such as Minturn & Bruner, 1951) have shown that expectation
can help us understanding the information. For example,

In the above figure, there is written 13 in both the above and below lines but in above line 13 is
percieved as due to the context in which it appears. B is percieved due to the letter context while
13 is percieved due to the number context.
Traits of the target also affect the perception of the perciever greatly. People who have louder
voices can be noticed more in a party or a gathering than the people who are quiet ones or
introverts. In the same sense, more attractive people are noticed more than the people who are
less attractive. This is because the fact that targets alone are not given the importance but their
connection with the background also influences perception. For example, black people have
many characteristics that are different for each individual but due to the common color factor
they are percieved as persons of having almost the same characteristics. This also stands same
for the women, group members etc. Another factor, such as physical appearance, can also
determine the perception of the perciever. What the target is wearing makes us determine
whether the target is a person of importance or just any ordinary person. Height, weight, age etc.
influence the perception of the perciever about a target.
Context of an event is also very important and it influences the percption to a great extent. Time,
location, heat, and other situational factors influence attention of the perciever. For example, a 22
year old attractive woman might be unnoticed on a saturday night at a nightclub but that same
woman would definitely catch our attention in morning management class. Here the situation
changed from saturday night to the morning only but none of the perciever or the target changed,
yet the perception is different. Past experience about a situation also affects our perception. For
example, if I ride a bike and circle a particular object and if I slip, then whenever I go past this
place, it will make me nervous and very careful while riding on the bike. I might even percieve
other people at that spot in danger as my past experience with it has been very bad there.

Information percieved through senses is also greatly influnced by the culture. For example,
people from America and western cultures don't have as much ability as people from the other
parts of the world have, about percieving someone else's point of of view as their culture
promotes individualism. People from China, live in socities which encourage collectivist attitude
and they are more capable of understanding other individual's perception. This is all due to
culture. Other example can be that American mothers have the tendency to focus more on their
children's successes while Chinese mothers focus more on the discipline aspect. This changes the
perception of both mothers as American mother might percieve her child as smart while Chinese
mother may attribute kid's success to guess work.
We can avoid misperception by rationilizing ourselves and enhancing our perceptual skills. First
of all, we must try to know ourself (perciever) accurately, then we can see the things truely as the
perciever. Ability to put ourself into another's shoes very much influences our perceptions. We
must try to understand the target's position and his behavior. We must undertsand other's view
point and appreciate it. Maintaing a positive attitude, enhancing the self image and
communicating in an authentic way help us percieve the things as they truely are. We should
avoid the attributions and always trust each other. It can be concluded that knowledge of one's
own biases and an effort to overcome them will lead to a significant avoidance in misperception.
References