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Perception and communication

A Little Revision: Self-sabotage or self-fulfillment

■ “You are what you think”; thoughts are the seeds of actions.

■ The true sabotage lies within communication with oneself, in thoughts and in words

■ Intra personal communication is the communication is the communication you have with yourself about yourself and others.

(Perkins, page 2-3)

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Perception of ourselves

■ The question “Who am I?” is complex.

■ How others treat us affect how we view ourselves.

■ Who we perceive ourselves to be is determined by our experiences and communication with others.

■ Communication with oneself is the basis of all other communication experiences.

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Perception and ourselves

■ Our self concept or self identity is our perceived self, which consists of an organised collection of beliefs and attitudes about the self.

■ This include the roles and values we have selected for ourselves, and how we believe others see us.

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Self-concept and communication

■ The perception we believe others have on us affect our communication.

■ Our view of ourselves influences how we communicate with others.

■ Communication and self concept are inseparable and both involve process.

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Perception

Sensation and perception■ How do our brain register “what is out there”?

■ What other senses do we use to register the amazing world?

■ How do we see, smell, hear, feel and taste?

■ Are there other “extra-sensory” preceptors?

■ How are we aware of our bodies?

■ How are we aware of other people?

■ Are we aware of everything around us?

Sensation■ Psychologists define sensation as the registration of

properties of an object or event that occurs when a type of receptor ( as the retina and the skin) is stimulated (Kosslynn and Rosenberg, 2006)

■ Sensation arise when enough physical energy strikes the sense organ, so that the receptor cells send neural impulses to the brain.

■ In other words, sensation is the process that yields our immediate experience of the stimuli in our environment (Gerow, 1997)

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Other senses

■ Vestibular sense: tells us about balance, about where we are in relation to gravity and about acceleration/ deceleration.

■ Kinesthetic sense: tells us the about the movement or position of our muscles and joints.

■ Pain: a special sense

■ Subliminal perception

■ Extra-sensory perception

Sensation and Perception

■ If all of us receive the same stimuli from our senses, are our perception the same too?

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Perception

■ Perception occurs when you organized and interpreted the sensory input as signaling a particular object or event .

■ Perception relies on two phases of processing:(1) Organization into coherent unit

(2) Identifying what and where

Perception

■ Perception is the process of selectively attending to information and assigning meaning to it. (Verderber and Verderber, 2005)

■ The process of selecting, organizing and interpreting sensory information ( Huffman, 2007)

■ The brain select the information it receives from our sense organs, organizes the information selected, interprets and evaluates it . (Verderber and Verderber, 2005)

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Perception

■ Perception involves selecting, organizing and interpreting information in order to give personal meaning to the communication we receive ( Seiler and Beall, 2008; page 30)

■ What we perceive about ourselves, objects and others give meanings to our experiences.

■ It is these meanings, based on our perceptions that we communicate to others.

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Perception

■ Perception may sounds simple but it is actually a very complex process.

■ If not understood, will lead to miscommunications.

■ The process of perception starts with awareness and then followed by perception formation.

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Perception: Awareness

■ Being aware of what is going on, and taking in

the sights, sounds, smells etc., can only occur

when we are paying attention to them

■ Do you think that if we are in the same room, we

are aware of the same things?

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Perception: Perception Formation

■ The way our mind filters and sorts information has a deep effect on how we perceive others, how we talk to them and how they respond to us.

■ Each of us organise and interprets the world differently.

■ Psychologists use the term cognitive complexity to explain how our minds process and store information.

■ Children has simple processing information system whereas adults have complex processing systems.

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The Nature of Perception

■ Lack of information on how perception works

leads to miscommunications; including

misjudgments of other people’s behaviours and

ideas.

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The Nature of Perception

■ Does our brains absorb information like the camera?

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The Nature of Perception: Selection

■ There is too much information- so the brain selects.

■ We are exposed to millions of bits of information, at one time, but the mind can process only a small fraction.

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How do we select?

■ On the conscious and subconscious level, the brain selects information based on needs, interests and expectations.

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Needs, Interests and Expectations

■ We are likely to pay attention to information that meets our needs – of all types.

■ We pay attention to things or people which/ who are of our interest.

■ We are likely to see what we are expected to see and to miss information which violates our expectations.

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How do we select?

■ We choose to experience or not experience certain things is called selective exposure.

■ Focusing on specific stimuli while ignoring or paying less attention to other stimuli is called selective attention.

■ Selecting to remember certain stimuli but no others is called selective retention.

■ Selection is the sorting of stimuli from another.

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The nature of perception: Organization

■ Imagine when you walk into a room filled with

people.

■ Organization is categorizing of stimuli from the

environment in order to make sense of it.

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The role of experience

How do we organize information?

■ Closure: filling in missing information so as to form a complete picture

■ Proximity : Grouping of two or more stimuli that are close to one another, based on assumption that because the objects or people appear together, they are basically the same.

■ Similarity ( or pattern) : the grouping of stimuli that resemble one another in size, shape, colour or other traits

■ Simplicity

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The Nature of Perception : Interpretation

■ Interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to the stimuli.

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How do we interpret?

■ Past experience

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How do we interpret?

■ New information

■ Based on other people’s opinions

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Improving perception

■ Recognise the uniqueness of each person frame of reference and therefore always question the accuracy of our perception.

■ Be an active perceiver: Seek more information

■ Realize that perception change over time

■ Distinguish facts from inferences.

■ Aware of the role of perceptions play in communication.

■ Keep an open mind

■ Perception checking

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Conclusion

■ Perception is the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting information in order to give meaning( or make sense of the situation).

■ Perception is being influenced by many factors such as experience, culture, gender, context, etc

■ To improve communication we must remember that perception is seldom the same for everyone; our perception is one of the many possibilities.

■ Make efforts to improve our perception.

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References:

■ Seiler, W. J and Beall, M. L ( 2008). Communication. Making Connections ( 7th ed). Boston: Pearson

■ Perkins,P. S ( 2008). The Art and Science of Communication. Tools for Effective Communication in the Work Place. New Jersey: Wiley.

■ Hybels, S., and Weaver II, R. L ( 2004). Communcating Effectively ( 7th ed). Boston: Mc Graw Hill

■ Verderber, R. F. and Verderber, K.S (2005) Communicate( 11th ed). CA: Thomson/Wadsworth

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References

■ Aamodt, M.G (2007). Industrial /organizational psychology. An applied approach. Belmont, CA: Thomson

■ Kosslynn & Rosenberg ( 2006). Psychology in Context (3rd ed). Boston, MA: Pearson International edition.

■ Gerow, G. R ( 1997). Psychology. An Introduction (5th ed). New York: Addison-Wesley Publishers Inc.

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