Perception & Human

Communication
Making Sense of the World Around Us

Making Sense of the World

Perceptionmaking sense of the world around us
is integral to all facets of the human
experience and is especially critical to
communication
We are uniquely well suited to this task. 2 truly
remarkable aspects:
1. Proficiency and skill in making senes of the complex
world we inhabit
2. -our capacity to perceive that world in different way

Differences in Perception
Though differences are not always extreme, they
are ubiquitous
Differences exist even in simple perceptual tasks, and
the potential for difference only increases with
complexity

Why?
Seeing the world is not a matter of objective
observation. Perception is complex physical,
psychological, and social process influenced by a variety
of factors

Communication & Perception

Human communication will always be a
process of perceiving meaning, and not
simply a matter of objectively interpreting
a message or observing reality
Communication is the key to bridging
perceptual differences
Explicitly & and directly (e.q. direct statements)
Implicitly & gradually (e.g. convergence in a relationship)

So what is perception?
Perception: The social and cognitive process by which
individuals assign meaning to raw sense data (Trenholm)
Perception involves 3 sub-processes:
Selection
Organization
Interpretation

These stages arent a distinct sequence but

overlapping aspects of an integrated process

Selection
Selection what we attend to or choose to further processing
Selection is necessarywere exposed to more sensory info than we
can consciously process
Selection (and all stages of perception) is a combination of:
Voluntary elements (e.g. focus, motivation)
Involuntary elements (e.g. cognitive structure, socialization)

Factors Influencing Selection

Qualities possessed by stimuli:
(See text) Contrast, frequency,
intensity, novelty, qualities which
overlap with motivations

Individual differencese.g.,
priorities, values, cognitive
structure
Individual tendencies in selection are
largely based on learned behavior

Organization
Organization how we arrange or organize the info we
attend to (select). Typically there are multiple ways to
assemble information

Consider the following images:

Factors Influencing Organization

Organizational principles:
(See text) Similarity , proximity, structure, figure and
ground, closure

Cognitive schemata internal knowledge

structure/cognitive templates
Our perceptual defaults. Often automatically activated

Routinely utilized individuals as cognitive misers (Fiske and Taylor)

Types of Cognitive Schemata

Prototypes idealized representations of categories
Personal constructs frameworks applied to those we interact
with (e.g. physical, role, interactional, psychological (see text)
Scripts Event/action based
Punctuation organization of cause, effect, and sequence in
comm
Chronically accessible constructs (Kelly)the constructs we use
most frequently and therefore are most influential
Notethe particular schemata activated are often affected by
factors such as mood, priming and suggestion

More on Organization
We can consciously influence our
organizational processes:
Searching for a particular pattern

Conscious efforts to overcome our biases/gereralizations

Knowledge & skill are importantrecognizing a

pattern may require that you know what to
look for

Interpretation
Interpretationhow we assign meaning to
what weve selected and organized

Heavily influenced by individual factors

character, situation, etc and inherently
subjective, though individuals often share
common starting points

Attribution
Attribution (Kelly, 1967) inferences about people
based on behavior.
2 types
Internal (dispositional)behavior due to persons character

External (situational) attributionbehavior due to circumstances

When making attributions we attempt to determine:

Is the behavior permanent or transitory? Does the person have freedom of
choice / control over their actions? (control dimension Wood, 2004)

Person Perception
Implicit personality theories: attributes we think go together

Halo-effect: inferring additional similar (positive qualities on the

basis of an observed attribute.

Expectations: we often see what we expect

Self-fulfilling prophecy our expectations affect our own behavior

Pygmalion effect our expectations affect others

Other General Influences on

Perception
Context:
Contextual principlesrule and norms about meaning, importance, etc. within a
particular context
Contextual statescurrent state or climate of a particular context

Degree of involvement
Personality (e.g. cognitive complexity)
Past experience knowledge, reputation, primacy / recency
Empathy

Improving Perceptual Accuracy in

Communication
Being mindful awareness of biases and
expectation
Good listening skills
Perception-checking: verbal probes that assess
perceptual accuracy
Repetition, restatement, clearinghouse

May be overused