Perception

Perception is the process by which a person experiences his world.

“Perception is a cognitive process of seeing, receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting and

Definition-refer class notes

1. Perceptual input
The perception process begins with the reception of stimuli, which will be received from
various sources. Through the sensory organs, we see things, hear sound, nose smells,
tongue tastes, and touch things. In this way, the reception of stimuli is a physiological
aspect of the perception process. Stimuli may be external to us such as sound waves or
inside of us such as energy generation by muscles.
2. Perceptual processing
 Selection of Stimuli
 Organization of Stimuli.
 Interpretation of Stimuli.

3. Perceptual Outputs: Based on perceptual mechanism which ends with interpretation of stimuli,
perceptual outputs emerge. These outputs may be in the form of covert actions like development of
attitudes. Opinions, beliefs, impression about the stimuli under consideration. These outputs along
with other factors affecting human behavior may result in overt behavior.

PERCEPTUALSELECTIVITY

Perception is a selective process and as the people can sense only limited amount of
information in the environment, they are characteristically selective. By selection, certain
aspects of stimuli are screened out and others are admitted. For example, when people read a
newspaper, they do not read the entire newspaper but only that news which interest them.

This is known as perceptual selectivity. This is caused by a variety of factors which may be
grouped into two categories: external and internal.

External Factors in Perceptual Selectivity

The external factors consist of environmental influences and are in the form of the
characteristics of perceptual inputs or stimuli. These characteristics may distinguish a particular
stimulus from other stimulus of the same group.
1. Size. Size is a characteristic which may affect the perceptual selectivity by affecting the
attraction of the perceiver. Generally, bigger is the size of perceived stimulus, higher is the
probability that it attracts the attention of the perceiver and he may select it for perception.
Usually, letter of higher sizes in newspapers or books are first selected for reading.

2. Intensity. The intensity principle of attention states that the more intense the external
stimulus is, the more likely it is to be perceived. A loud sound, strong odour, or bright light is
noticed more as compared to a soft sound, weak odour, or dim light. For example, based on the
intensity principle, commercials on televisions are slightly louder than the regular programmes.

3. Repetition. The repetition principle states that a repeated external stimulus is more
attention-getting than a single one. Repetition increases people's sensitivity or alertness to the
stimulus. Advertisers use this principle by repeated advertisement of the same product to
attract people's attention.

4. Novelty and Familiarity. Novelty and familiarity principle states that either a novel or a
familiar external situation can serve as attention-getter. New objects or events in a familiar
setting or familiar objects or events in new setting draw better attention.

5. Contrast. The contrast principle states that external stimuli which stand against the
background, or which are not what people are expecting, receive more attention. Letters of
bold types, persons dressed differently than others, buildings of different colours in the same
locality, etc. get more attention.

6. Motion. Motion principle states that a moving object draws more attention as compared to a
stationary object. for example, commercials on televisions (moving ones) get more attention
than print media.

Internal factors:-

1. Self-Concept. The way a person views the world depends a great deal on the concept or
image he has about himself. This concept plays an internal role in perceptual selectivity.
People's own characteristics affect the characteristics which they are likely to see in others.

2. Beliefs. A person's beliefs have profound influence on his perception. Thus, a fact is
conceived not on what it is but what a person believes it to be. The individual normally censors
stimulus inputs to avoid disturbance of his existing beliefs.

3. Expectations. Expectations affect what a person perceives. Expectations are related with the
state of anticipation of a particular behavior from a person. Thus, a technical manager may
expect ignorance about the technical features of a product from non-technical people, or union
officials use rough language. Such expectations may affect the perception.
4. Inner Needs. People's perception is determined by their inner needs. The need is a feeling of
tension or discomfort when one thinks he is missing something or when he feels he has not
quite closed a gap in his knowledge. People with different needs usually experience different
stimuli. Similarly, people with different needs select different items to remember or respond to.
When people are not able to satisfy their needs, they are engaged in wishful thinking which is a
way to satisfy the needs not in real world but in imaginary world, the day dreaming.

5. Response Disposition. Response disposition refers to a person's tendency to perceive

6. Response Salience. Response salience is the set of dispositions which are determined not by
the familiarity of the stimulus situations, but by the person's own cognitive predispositions.
Thus, a particular problem in an organisation may be viewed as a marketing problem by
marketing personnel, a control problem by accounting people, and human relations problem by
personnel people.

7. Perceptual Defense. Perception defense refers to the screening of those elements which
create conflict and threatening situation in people. They may even perceive other factors to be
present that are not a part of the stimulus situation.

PERCEPTUAL ORGANISATION

People organize the various stimuli on the principles of figure-ground, grouping, simplification, and
closure.

1. Figure-Ground

People tend to organise information on what is known as the figure-ground principle. This involves that
in perceiving stimuli or phenomena, the tendency is to keep certain phenomena in focus and other
phenomena in background. For example, while reading a book, the letters printed are treated as figure
while the page on which the letters have been printed is taken as ground.

2. Grouping
The grouping principle of perceptual organization states that there is a tendency to group several stimuli
into recognizable pattern. There are certain underlying uniformities in grouping. People generally group
various stimuli on the basis of proximity or similarity.

Proximity.
The proximity or nearness principle of proximity states that a group of stimuli that are close
together will be perceived as a whole of parts or pattern of parts belonging together. For
example, all employees working in a particular department may be grouped together because
of physical proximity.

Similarity. The principle of similarity states that the greater the similarity of the stimuli, greater
is the tendency to perceive them as a common group. For example, all the workers may be
perceived to have the same opinions about the management because they are grouped
together on the basis of similarity.

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Whenever, people are overloaded with information, they try to simplify it to make it more
meaningful and understandable. In the process of simplification, the perceiver subtracts less
salient information and concentrates on important one. Simplification makes the things more
understandable.

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When faced with incomplete information, people fill up the gaps themselves to make the
information meaningful. This may be done on the basis of past experience, past data, or
hunches.

INTERPRETATION OF PERCEPTION:-

Here we interpret the perceived facts & it is a process of judgment. But sometimes due to the
presence of some factors, it leads to misinterpretation or wrong perception. When these things
occur, these are called perceptual errors.

Perceptual errors.

Attribution. Attribution is the process by which individuals interpret events as being caused by
particular aspects in the setting around them. Individuals perceive the information around them
and learn to behave accordingly and think of their behavior and that of others as caused by
some factors in the environment.

Attribution of causes for events influences perception. For example, if a person is bypassed in
promotion, he may attribute the reason of his bypassing in terms that others have been
promoted not because of their ability but because of their being close with high-ups. .

First Impression. It is very common that people evaluate others on the basis of first impression.
The evaluation based on first impression may be correct if it is based on adequate and
significant evidence. However, since first impression evaluation is not based on adequate
information, it may not be true reflection of people being perceived. Even in such cases, people
continue to evaluate on the basis of first impression, though incorrect.

Halo Effect. The term halo effect was first used in 1920 to describe a process in which a general
impression which is favorable or unfavorable is used by judges to evaluate several specific
traits. The halo in such a case serves as a screen, keeping the perceiver away from actually
seeing the trait he is judging. Halo effect is more reflected in performance appraisal where the
distortion exists because the rater is influenced by ratee's one or two outstandingly good (or
bad) performances and he evaluates the entire performance accordingly.

Stereotyping. Stereotyping occurs when the perceiver judges or perceives a person on the basis
of characteristics of the group to which he belongs. The person is not perceived as an individual
with specific set of his characteristics but on the basis of his group characteristics.

PERCEPTION AND ITS APPLICATION IN ORGANISATIONS

Different interviewers try to see different things in the same candidate differently, and thus
arrive at different perceptions. Who one thinks is a good candidate, the candidate can be seen
perceived by another interviewer as no good for the job. Interviewers form early Impressions
about the candidate, which ultimately weighs more in the selection

2. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Assessment of an employee's performance very much depends on the perception of the evaluator
about the employee.

3. PERFORMANCE EXPECTATION

New employees during their selection process acquire a set of expectations booth about the
organization and about the job. In case there is a big gap between the expectations and realities,
there will be problems of increased alienation of employee, absenteeism, and even turnover.