What occurs in perception?

The process of perception:

People engage in three separate activities during perception:
1. Selection
2. Organization
3. Interpretation
No one is aware of these separate processes because they occur quickly
and almost simultaneously.
 Selection:
In perception process, selection is the process of neglecting
some stimuli in the environment to focus on other stimuli. For example,
when a person drives or walks to the office, he is probably bombarded
with sights, sounds, smells and other sensations. At the time, he elects
sights or sounds to perceive as he has to drive or walk carefully and to
disregard smells or other sensations. The selection process largely depends
on the messages to which the person attends.
Researchers found four types of selectivity:

1. Selective exposure
2. Selective attention
3. Selective perception and
4. Selective retention.

#Selective exposure:
The tendency to expose ourselves to information that reinforces rather than
contradicts our beliefs or opinions. For example: In our country, people who
supports the political group Awami league, usually reads Daily Prothom Alo, Daily
Jonokontho or other newspapers with Awami agenda. On the other hand the
supporters of Bangladesh Nationalist Party give preference on Daily Noya Diganto
or Daily Amar Desh(closed now). It happens because the supporters want to see or
read the news convenient to their own political belief or opinion.
# Selective attention:
The tendency when we expose ourselves to information and ideas
to focus on certain cues and ignore others. For example, all types of newspaper
cover news of all political parties. However, the daily Noya Diganto focuses
greatly on BNP related news. The readers also like to read those types of news
rather than the positive news of opposite party. Here the authority and the readers
focus on certain news (cues) and ignore others.
# Selective perception:
The tendency to see, hear, and believe only what we want to see,
hear and believe. IS(Islamic State) or other terrorist groups are good examples of
selective perception. Since these groups tend to believe in their own perception
and fulfill their goals, whether it is good or bad.
# Selective retention:
The tendency to remember better things that reinforce our beliefs
than those that oppose them. For example, we do not like to think or recall
anything negative about a priest or an admirable person although they may have
some negative characteristics
 Organization:
Organization is the grouping of stimuli into meaningful units or
wholes. Each person organizes the stimuli in his or her environment. For example,
when a person crosses a busy road, he organizes his stimuli like listen to the horn
and look after the vehicles. This organization helps him to cross the road safely
(perception).
 We organize stimuli in a number of ways:
1. Figure and ground
2. Closure
3. Proximity and
4. Similarity.
# Figure and ground:
One organization method is to distinguish between figure and ground.
 Figure:
It is the focal point of a person’s attention. For example, according to
the number of quiz 1 achieved by the students, two of them were in my attention
as they had high scores. It means, those two were the figure in the class.
  
#Ground:
It is the background against which a person’s focused attention
occurs. For example, rest of the students in the class (not having the best
score) is the ground.
*** When you hear your name in a noisy room, your name becomes
figure and the rest becomes ground on a posted grade list. Your student
identification number becomes figure and the other numbers become ground.
#Closure:
The tendency to fill in missing information in order to complete an
otherwise incomplete figure or statement. It provides the appearance of a
complete unit of the stimuli. For example, if we see two people standing face-
to-face and looking deeply into each other’s eye; we generally fill in our
inference that they are lovers.
 Note:
Visual closure might be completing an incomplete circle or triangle,
but mental closure means filling in the meaning of what a person hear or
observe.
 #Proximity:
We can also organize stimuli on the basis of their proximity. According
to the principle of proximity, objects physically close to each other will be
perceived as a unit or group. Suppose I declare that only one student got A grade in
my course. Then if I start to call for attendance, the first student will think that
he/she is the highest scorer.

Note:
Proximity works verbally and nonverbally in communication. For
example, when I ask a question in class, I look for the regular students first to give
the perfect answer (non-verbal).
#Similarity:
It is said that similarity is one of the simplest means of organizing
stimuli. On the basis of similarity, elements are grouped together because they
resemble each other in size, color, shape or other attributes. The saying “Birds of a
feather flock together” can hold true as well for human groups, who often organize
by ethnicity, religion, political learning or interest. For example, in our country
more or less all minority groups have the perception that they are largely deprived
from basic rights because of the majority groups.
Interpretation:
The third activity in perception is interpretation, the process of
assigning meaning to stimuli. The more ambiguous the stimuli, the more room
for interpretation. For example, after marking your quiz paper, I have come to an
interpretation that, students of CMN 201, section#8 are good. They can do better
if they want. But they are reluctant to hard work.

Note:

# When interpreting stimuli, people frequently rely on the context in

which the stimuli are perceived. Context provides cues for how an action, an
object or a situation is to be interpreted or perceived. For example, most of the
students who are learning the course CMN201 are in first or second semester.
Because of this temporal context, they are not enough matured to feel the
importance of hard working for having a good grade. Here my perception has
been influenced by context.
#Another note for interpretation:

# For interpreting stimuli, people also compare the

stimuli to other stimuli. For example, as a teacher I have to evaluate
the student’s performance. In this process, I will think about the
reason or problem behind a bad result of a student. If my
comparison tells me that a student fails to achieve good grade
because of severe physical illness, I’ll do a favor for the student.