Perception Definition, Process, Nature of Perception, Perception Error, Role of Perception in Decision Making, Perception Importance

1. Perception
Prepared by Ms. Shery Asthana
Asst. Prof. (Greater Noida Institute of Management)

2. PERCEPTION
• Psychologist Jerome Bruner has developed a model of
perception
• Perception is an intellectual process of transforming sensory
stimuli to meaningful information. It is the process of
interpreting something that we see or hear in our mind and
use it later to judge and give a verdict on a situation, person,
group etc.
• Perception is the organization, identification, and
interpretation of sensory information in order to represent
and understand the environment.
• All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in
turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sense
organs.

3. Perception Process

4. • Perceptual Inputs:- It is the form of stimuli are not the part of actual perceptual
though these are necessary for the occurrence of perception. Stimuli may be in the
form of objects, events or people. When the perceiver interacts with a stimulus,
sensation takes places, which we have seen earlier and starts perceptual process.
Perceptual Mechanism:- involve three elements- selection of stimuli, organization
of stimuli and interpretation of stimuli.
• Selection :- After receiving the stimuli from the environment, some are selected for
further processing while others are screened out because it is not possible for a
person to select all stimuli which he sees in the environment.
• Organisation:- After the stimuli are received , these are organized in some form in
order to make sense out of that.
• Interpretation:- Organised stimuli will have to be interpreted by the perceiver so
that perceiver can sense and extract some meaning of what is going on in the
situation.
Perceptual Outputs:- These output may be in the form of covert actions like
development of attitudes, opinion, beliefs , impression about the stimuli under
consideration. These outputs along with other factors affecting human behaviour
may result in overt behaviour.

5. Nature of Perception:-
• “Perception refers to the interpretation of sensory data. In
other words, sensation involves detecting the presence of a
stimulus whereas perception involves understanding what
the stimulus means. For example, when we see something,
the visual stimulus is the light energy reflected from the
external world and the eye becomes the sensor.
• Perception is determined by both physiological and
psychological characteristics of the human being whereas
sensation is conceived with only the physiological features.
• Perception is a subjective process, therefore, different people
may perceive the same environment differently based on
what particular aspects of the situation they choose to
selectively absorb, how they organize this information and
the manner in which they interpret it to obtain a grasp of the
situation.

6. Perception Error:-
• Primacy/ Recency Effect: The first impression is given the most important which is
known as the primacy effect. Recency effect, on the other hand, is that human
beings remember latest events more than the less recent ones.
• Stereotyping: It is the effect caused by forming a certain belief about a category of
stimuli and generalizing that notion to encounters with each member of that
category. In reality, there is a difference between the perceived notion of each
category and the actual traits of the members. It may affect the interview process in
an organization.
• Halo effect: It is the process of generalizing from a comprehensive analysis to a
single attribute or trait. A negative halo effect is known as the reverse halo effect or
horn effect. It affects the performance appraisal of employees in a company.
• Projection: It is a psychological defence mechanism which makes a person compare
his negative traits with other people and conclude that He is better off than
others. Perceptual checking minimizes the negative effects of projection.
• Selective Perception: Selective perception is the process by which individuals
perceive what they want to in media messages while ignoring opposing viewpoints.
It is a broad term to identify the behavior all people exhibit to tend to "see things"
based on their particular frame of reference.

7. Role of Perception in Individual
Decision Making
• Individuals often use shortcuts in decision making and these shortcuts can
result in significant distortions.
• These shortcuts include selective perception, the halo effect,contrast effect,
projection, and stereotyping.
• Selective perception occurs when we only process information that is aligned
with our attitudes, interests, and backgrounds.
• In other words, we choose to see what we want to see. The halo effect occurs
when a single characteristic, say attractiveness, forms the basis for a general
impression about someone. For example, if someone is attractive we may
associate he/she has an array of unassociated traits: sociability, intelligence,
promotability.
• Contrast effects occur because we don’t evaluate a person in isolation; our
reaction is influenced by other persons we have recently encountered.
• Stereotyping is when we use decision making short- cut to draw general
determinations about an individual or group.

8. Managerial applications/importance of perception in
Organisation
(1) Interpersonal Working Relationship : Organizations are intended to bring
about integrated(combine) behaviour. Managers require efforts to perceive
correctly. Misperceptions lead to strained relations and may even result in
open conflict among people.
(2) Selection of Employees : Managers are subject to many of the perceptual
problems when they make the selection decisions. New employees have to be
selected with correct perception.
(3) Performance Appraisal : The appraisal of a subordinate's performance is highly
affected by the accuracy of a manager's perceptions.
(4) Impression Management : It is very important for an individual to manage or
to control what others perceive about the individual. Identification of social
image and self-concept are some relevant factors that contribute to impression
management. Perception helps managers to identify the competent persons.