The Effects of Context on Perceptions of Ambiguous Stimuli
Introduction
Perception can be defined as the process where the brain interprets the sensations it receives (Wortman & Loftus, 1992). The task of perception is to extract sensory inputs from the environment and organise them into meaningful percepts, which is what is perceived (Zimbardo & Weber, 1994).
The perceptual set theory states that perception is an active process involving interpretation, selection and inference (Allport, 1955). Defined by Allport, a perceptual set is a “perceptual bias or predisposition or readiness to perceive particular features of a stimulus” (Allport, 1955). The perceptual set of an individual can be influenced by all psychological elements, such as personality, environment, past experiences, motivation, culture and mood. The effect of a perceptual set is most likely to be noticed when people look at an ambiguous visual stimulus, which is an image or object that may be perceived in more than one way (Fraillon, …show more content…
Another EV was the influence of other people’s actions. Essentially, meaning that each group was kept separate in the same room, to reduce the likelihood of them picking up what the experiment was testing and therefore changing their results. By having all participants in the same room it also reduced another EV, this being different conditions the participants could have been subjected to, but as a result of being in the same room, were not. For example, temperature, sounds, supervision, assistance and the way the experiment was conducted. The last EV was the possibility of context not having an influence on perception. This was controlled by having a controlled group, who were given a random context and perceptual set and consequently would show no trend, supporting the
Introduction
Perception can be defined as the process where the brain interprets the sensations it receives (Wortman & Loftus, 1992). The task of perception is to extract sensory inputs from the environment and organise them into meaningful percepts, which is what is perceived (Zimbardo & Weber, 1994).
The perceptual set theory states that perception is an active process involving interpretation, selection and inference (Allport, 1955). Defined by Allport, a perceptual set is a “perceptual bias or predisposition or readiness to perceive particular features of a stimulus” (Allport, 1955). The perceptual set of an individual can be influenced by all psychological elements, such as personality, environment, past experiences, motivation, culture and mood. The effect of a perceptual set is most likely to be noticed when people look at an ambiguous visual stimulus, which is an image or object that may be perceived in more than one way (Fraillon, …show more content…
Another EV was the influence of other people’s actions. Essentially, meaning that each group was kept separate in the same room, to reduce the likelihood of them picking up what the experiment was testing and therefore changing their results. By having all participants in the same room it also reduced another EV, this being different conditions the participants could have been subjected to, but as a result of being in the same room, were not. For example, temperature, sounds, supervision, assistance and the way the experiment was conducted. The last EV was the possibility of context not having an influence on perception. This was controlled by having a controlled group, who were given a random context and perceptual set and consequently would show no trend, supporting the