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Module 17: Influences on Perception

Perceptual Set

17-1: How do our expectations, contexts, emotions, and motivation influence our perceptions?

  • ^^Perceptual set^^: set of mental tendencies and assumptions that greatly affects (top-down) what we perceive
    • Can influence what we hear, taster, feel, and see
    • Ex: a paper stating they have pictures of bigfoot and showing them, you’re going to be more likely to see bigfoot, but in reality it’s just a tree
    • Ex: the infamous black and blue dress
    • Ex: a pilot looked at his depressed co-pilot and said “Cheer up”. The depressed pilot expecting to hear the usually “Gear up”, the co-pilot promptly raised the wheels–before they left the ground
  • Through experience we form concepts, or schemas, that organize and allow us to interpret unfamiliar information
  • Our physical and emotional context, as well as our motivation, can create expectation and color our interpretation of events and behaviors

Context Effects

  • A given stimulus may trigger radically different perception, partly because of our different perceptual set, partly because of the context given

Emotion and Motivation

  • Perceptions are influenced, top-down, not only by our expectations and by the context, but also our emotions and motivation
    • Ex: walking destinations look farther away to those who have been fatigued by prior exercise
  • Our motives also direct our perception of ambiguous images
    • Desired objects seem closer
    • Ex: Water bottle when thirsty

ESP–Perception Without Sensation?

17-2: What are the claims of ESP, and what have most research psychologists concluded after putting these claims to the test?

  • ^^Extrasensory perception (ESP):^^ controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition

    • Three most testable forms of ESP:
    • Telepathy: mind to mind communication
    • Clairvoyance: perceiving remote events, like house fire in another state
    • Precognition: perceiving future events

  • ^^Parapsychology:^^ the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and Psychokinesis

  • Skeptics argue that (1) to believe in ESP, you must believe that brain is capable of perceiving without sensory input, and (2) researchers have been unable to replicate ESP phenomena under controlled conditions

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