2.2 Perception

Perception is the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting information. This process includes the perception of select stimuli that pass through our perceptual filters, are organized into our existing structures and patterns, and are then interpreted based on previous experiences. Although perception is largely a cognitive and psychological process, how we perceive the people and objects around us is also affected by our communication with others. This part of the perception process is referred to as negotiation of meaning (Interpersonal communication, 2012). We respond differently to an object or person that we perceive favourably than we do to something we find unfavourable (Interpersonal communication, 2012). Also, our perceptions can change after interacting with another person or group of people. But how do we filter the mass amounts of incoming information, then organize and create meaning from what makes it through our perceptual filters and into our social realities? The following video, which summarizes some of the main content from this chapter, provides some answers to that question. We will then continue to elaborate on this concept throughout the chapter.

(Study Hall, 2022)

Perception Process

1. Selecting Information

We take in information through all five of our senses, but the world around us includes so many stimuli that it is impossible for our brains to process and make sense of it all. So, as information comes in through our senses, various factors influence what actually continues on through the perception process (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Selecting is the first part of this process; we focus our attention on certain incoming sensory information. Think about how, out of many other possible stimuli to pay attention to, you may hear a familiar voice in the hallway, see a pair of shoes you want to buy from across the mall, or smell something cooking for dinner when you get home from work. We quickly cut through and push to the background all kinds of sights, smells, sounds, and other stimuli. But how do we decide what to select and what to leave out?

We tend to pay attention to information that is salient. Salience is the degree to which something attracts our attention in a particular context. The thing that attracts our attention can be abstract, like a concept, or concrete, like an object. The degree of salience depends on three features: things that are visually or aurally stimulating, things that meet our needs or interests, and expectations that affect what we find salient (Fiske & Tayor, 1991).

 Visual and Auditory Stimulation

It is probably not surprising to learn that anything that creates visual or auditory stimulation becomes salient in our perceptual field and captures our attention. Creatures ranging from fish to hummingbirds are attracted to things like silver spinners on fishing poles or red birdfeeders, as shown in Image 2.1. Having our senses stimulated isn’t always a positive thing, though. Think about the couple who won’t stop talking during the movie or the upstairs neighbour whose subwoofer shakes your ceiling at night. In short, stimuli can be attention-getting in a productive or in a distracting way. As communicators, we can use this knowledge to our benefit by minimizing distractions when we have something important to say. It’s probably better to have a serious conversation with a significant other in a quiet place rather than a crowded one. Altering the rate, volume, and pitch of your voice, known as vocal variety, can help keep your audience engaged, as can gestures and movement. Conversely, nonverbal adaptors, or the nervous movements we make to relieve anxiety, like pacing or twirling our hair, can be distracting. Aside from minimizing distractions and delivering our messages enthusiastically, the content of our communication also affects salience.

Needs and Interests

We tend to pay attention to information that we perceive meets our needs or interests in some way. This type of selective attention can help us meet instrumental needs and get things done. When you need to speak with a financial aid officer about your scholarships and loans, you sit in the waiting room and listen for your name to be called. Paying close attention to whose name is called means you can be ready to start your meeting and hopefully get your business handled.

When we don’t think certain messages meet our needs, stimuli that would normally get our attention may be completely ignored. Imagine that you are in the grocery store, and you hear someone say your name. You turn around, only to hear that person say, “Finally! I said your name three times. I thought you had forgotten who I was!” A few seconds before, when you were focused on figuring out which kind of orange juice to buy, you tuned other stimuli out, even something as familiar as the sound of someone calling your name.

We also find information that interests us salient. Of course, stimuli that meet our needs can also be interesting, but it’s worth discussing these two items separately because sometimes we find things interesting that don’t necessarily meet our needs. I’m sure we’ve all gotten sucked into a television show, video game (Image 2.2), or random project and paid attention to that at the expense of something that actually meets our needs like preparing dinner or spending time with a significant other. Paying attention to things that interest us but don’t meet specific needs seems like the basic formula for procrastination, something we are all familiar with.

In many cases, we know what interests us, and we automatically gravitate toward stimuli that match up with that. For example, as you flip through radio stations, you likely already have an idea of what kind of music interests you, so you will stop on a station playing something in that genre while skipping right past stations playing something you aren’t interested in. Because of this tendency, we often end up being forced into or accidentally experiencing something new in order to create or discover new interests. For example, you may accidentally stumble on a new area of interest when you register for a class you wouldn’t otherwise take because it fits into your schedule. As a communicator, you can take advantage of this perceptual tendency by adapting your topic and content to the interests of your audience.

Expectations

Another feature that affects the degree of salience is expectations. However, the relationship between salience and expectations is somewhat complex. Basically, we can find expected things salient and also find things that are unexpectedly salient. Although this may sound confusing, a couple of examples should illustrate this point. If you are expecting a package to be delivered, you might pick up on the slightest noise of a truck engine or someone’s footsteps approaching your front door. Since we expect something to happen, we may be extra tuned in to clues that it is coming. In terms of the unexpected, if you have a shy and soft-spoken friend whom you overhear raising the volume and pitch of their voice while talking to another friend, you may pick up on that and assume that something out of the ordinary is going on. For something unexpected to become salient, it has to reach a certain threshold of difference. If you walk into your regular class and there are one or two more students there than normal, you may not even notice. If you walk into your class and there is someone dressed up as a wizard, you would probably notice. So, if we expect to experience something out of the routine, like a package delivery, we will find stimuli related to that expectation salient. If we experience something that we weren’t expecting and that is significantly different from our routine experiences, then we will likely find it salient.

There is a middle area where slight deviations from routine experiences may go unnoticed because we aren’t expecting them. To go back to the earlier example, if you aren’t expecting a package, and you regularly hear vehicle engines and sidewalk foot traffic outside your house, those routine sounds wouldn’t be as likely to catch your attention, even if the traffic was slightly more or less than expected. This is because our expectations are often based on previous experience and patterns we have observed and internalized, which allows our brains to go on “autopilot” and fill in things that are missing or overlook extra things.

The example above illustrates a test of our expectations and an annoyance to every college or university student. We may have had the experience of getting a paper back with typos and spelling errors circled, which can be frustrating, especially if we took the time to proofread. When we first learn to read and write, we typically learn letter by letter. Perhaps a teacher or parent showed us a card with A-P-P-L-E written on it, and we sounded it out. Over time, we learned the patterns of letters and sounds and could see combinations of letters and pronounce the word quickly. Since we know what to expect when we see a certain pattern of letters, and we know what comes next in a sentence if we wrote the paper, we don’t take the time to look at each letter as we proofread. This can lead us to overlook common typos and spelling errors, even if we reread something multiple times. How can you avoid proofreading errors? First, ask a friend to proofread your paper. Since they didn’t write it, they have fewer expectations regarding the content. Second, read your paper backwards. Since patterns of speech aren’t the same in reverse, you have to stop and focus on each word. Now that we know how we select stimuli, let’s turn our attention to how we organize the information we receive.

2. Organizing Information

Organizing is the second part of the perception process and involves sorting and categorizing the information that we perceive based on innate and learned cognitive patterns. Three ways we sort things into patterns are by using proximity, similarity, and difference (Coren, 1980). For proximity, we tend to think that things that are close together, go together. For example, have you ever been waiting to be helped in a business and the clerk assumes that you and the person standing beside you are together? The slightly awkward moment usually ends when you and the other person in line look at each other, then back at the clerk, and one of you explains that you are not together. Even though you may have never met that other person in your life, the clerk used a basic perceptual organizing cue to group you together because you were standing in proximity to one another.

We also group things together based on similarity. We tend to think similar-looking or similar-acting things belong together. For example, let’s say that you have two friends who you occasionally go out with, and you are all three males, around the same age, of the same race, and with short hair and glasses. Aside from that, you don’t really look alike, but a server at a restaurant may assume that you’re brothers. Despite the fact that many other features are different, the salient features are organized based on similarity, and the three of you are suddenly related in the server’s eyes.

We also organize information based on difference. In this case, we assume that an item that looks or acts differently from the rest doesn’t belong with the group. Perceptual errors involving people and assumptions of difference can be especially awkward, if not offensive, in some cases.

These strategies for organizing information are so common that they are built into how we teach our children basic skills and how we function in our daily lives. We probably all had to look at pictures in elementary school and determine which things went together and which thing didn’t belong. If you think of the literal act of organizing something, like your desk at home or work, we follow these same strategies. If you have a bunch of papers and mail on top of your desk, you will likely sort the papers into separate piles for separate categories or put bills in a different place than your personal mail. You may have one drawer for pens, pencils, and other supplies and another drawer for files. In this case, you are grouping items based on similarities and differences. You may also group things based on proximity, for example, by putting financial items like a calculator, your pay stubs, and business receipts in one area so you can update your finances efficiently. We simplify information and look for patterns to help us more efficiently communicate and get through life.

Simplifying and categorizing based on patterns isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, without this capability, we would likely not be able to speak, read, or engage in other complex cognitive and behavioural functions. Our brain innately categorizes and files information and experiences away for later retrieval, and different parts of the brain are responsible for different sensory experiences. In short, it is natural for things to group together in certain ways. There are differences among people, and looking for patterns helps us in many practical ways. However, the judgements we place on various patterns and categories are not natural; they are learned and are culturally and contextually relative. Our perceptual patterns can become unproductive and even unethical when the judgements we associate with certain patterns are based on stereotypical or prejudicial thinking.

3. Interpreting Information

Although selecting and organizing incoming stimuli happens very quickly, and sometimes without much conscious thought, interpretation can be a much more deliberate and conscious step in the perception process. Interpretation is the third part of the perception process and is the point at which we assign meaning to our experiences using mental structures known as schemata. Schemata are like databases of stored, related information that we use to interpret new experiences. We all have fairly complicated schemata that have developed over time as small units of information combine to make more meaningful complexes of information.

For example, we have an overall schema (singular form of “schemata”) about education and how to interpret experiences with teachers and classmates, as shown in Image 2.3. This schema started developing before we even went to preschool based on information about school that we got from parents, peers, and the media. You may have learned that certain objects like a pencil, a ruler, and a notebook were associated with being a student or teacher. You also learned new concepts like grades and recess, and you engaged in new practices like doing homework, studying, and taking tests. In school, you formed new relationships with teachers, administrators, and classmates, and as you progressed through your education, your schema adapted to the changing environment. How smooth or troubling the process of re-evaluating and revising a particular schema is varies from situation to situation and person to person. For example, some students adapt their schema relatively easily as they move from elementary to middle to high school and on to post-secondary education and are faced with new expectations for behaviour and academic engagement. Other students don’t adapt as easily, and holding onto their old schema creates problems as they try to interpret new information through an old, incompatible schema. We’ve all been in a similar situation at some point in our lives, so we know that revising our schemata can be stressful and that such revision takes effort and usually involves some mistakes, disappointments, and frustrations. But being able to adapt our schemata is a sign of cognitive complexity, which is an important part of communication competence. So, even though the process may be challenging, it can also be a time for learning and growth.

It’s important to be aware of schemata because our interpretations affect our behaviour. For example, if you are doing a group project for a class, and you perceive a group member to be shy based on your schema of how shy people communicate, you may avoid giving them presentation responsibilities in your group project because you do not think shy people make good public speakers. Schemata also guide our interactions and provide a script for our behaviours. We know, in general, how to act and communicate in a waiting room, in a classroom, on a first date, and even on a game show, as shown in Image 2.4.

As we have seen, schemata are used to interpret others’ behaviour and form impressions about who they are as a person. To help this process along, we often solicit information from people to help us place them into a preexisting schema. In Canada, the United States, and many other Western cultures, people’s identities are often closely tied to what they do for a living. When we introduce others, or ourselves, occupation is usually one of the first things we mention. Think about how your communication with someone might differ if they were introduced to you as an artist versus a doctor. We make similar interpretations based on where people are from, their age, their race or ethnicity, and other social and cultural factors.

In summary, we have schemata about individuals, groups, places, and things, and these schemata filter our perceptions before, during, and after interactions. As schemata are retrieved from memory, they are executed like computer programs or apps on your smartphone to help us interpret the world around us. Just as computer programs and apps must be regularly updated to improve their functioning, competent communicators update and adapt their schemata as they have new experiences.

References

Interpersonal communication. (2012). Whatcom Community College. https://textbooks.whatcom.edu/dutton210, licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, except where otherwise noted.

Sillars, A. L. (1980). Attributions and communication in roommate conflicts. Communication Monographs, 47(3), 180–200. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03637758009376031

Study Hall. (2022, September 9). Perception | Human communication | Study Hall [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjIghWoz-nc

Watzlawick, P., Beavin Bavelas, J., & Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of human communication: A study of interactional patterns, pathologies, and paradoxes. W. W. Norton & Company.

Image Credits (images are listed in order of appearance)

Hill City Hummingbird by GeneMJ530, CC BY-SA 4.0

PAX South 2015 – Playing video games (16334943886) by Daniel Benavides, CC BY 2.0

Elementary School in Boquete Panama 02 by FranHogan, CC BY-SA 4.0

Wheel of Fortune Navy by Journalist Seaman Ryan Clement, U.S. Navy, Public domain