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Percpetual Processes, Sets and Interpetations

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Josh and Jane enter a crowded party hosted by a casual acquaintance. Overwhelmed by all the sights, sounds, and smells, they start to size up the room, noting jocks by the bar and nerds standing outside.

QUESTIONS:

What are the perceptual processes involved in these various types of perceptual interpretations?
In what types of ways do your own perceptual sets create interpretations like this?
Can we change our perceptual sets and interpretations?
If so, provide an example of a time when you changes a perceptual interpretation.

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Solution Summary

Based on the case, this solution responds to the questions on several dimensions, including the perceptual processes involved, how perceptual sets create interpretations like this, ways to change one's perceptual set and interpretations, as well as an example of changes in a perceptual interpretation.

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RESPONSE:

1. Josh and Jane enter a crowded party hosted by a casual acquaintance. Overwhelmed by all the sights, sounds, and smells, they start to size up the room, noting jocks by the bar and nerds standing outside. What are the perceptual processes involved in these various types of perceptual interpretations?

Perceptual interpretation has been investigated and of interest for a long time, with some arguing that it is innate (nature), while others argue that perceptual interpretation is due to environmental factors (nurture). For example:

* Immanuel Kant (1724©1804) maintained that knowledge comes from our inborn ways of organizing sensory experiences.
* John Locke (1632©1704) argued that through our experiences we also learn to perceive the world (Myers, 2007).

How important is experience in shaping our perceptual interpretation? Experience is important in shaping our perceptual interpretation (in addition to biological factors and essential perceptual processes:

* Perceptual Adaptation ?the visual ability to adjust to an artificially displaced visual field, e.g., prism glasses.

* Perceptual Set ?a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another or notice some aspects of the available sensory data and ignore others. Like Josh and Jane had percpetual sets of what was classified as a "jock" or a "nerd."

According to Vernon, (1955, as cited in Myers, 2007) perceptual set works in two ways: (1) The perceiver has certain expectations and focuses attention on particular aspects of the sensory data: This he calls a 'Selector'. (2) The perceiver knows how to classify, understand and name selected data and what inferences to draw from it. This he calls an 'Interpreter'. It has been found that a number of variables, or factors, influence perceptual set, and set in turn influence perception (e.g. expectations, emotion, motivation and culture).

* Learned schemas impacts perception and interpretations. Schemas are concepts that organize and interpret unfamiliar information. What we perceive ...

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