What is the selection stage of the perception process?

In this chapter, I learned the most about the perception process. The perception process consists of four steps: selection, organization, interpretation and negotiation. In the third chapter of our textbook, it defines selection as the stimuli that we choose to attend to. This is the part of perception where we block most other stimuli and focus on the ones that stand out most to us. The second step in the process is organization. This is defined as the step when we arrange the information that we have selected in a meaningful way. In our brains, we have ‘files’ where we store things that we have learned. This is the point in the process when we decide where each stimuli goes. This is also the step in which stereotyping is categorized. The third step is interpretation. The book defines interpretation as the time when we interpret things in a way that makes sense to us in some sort of way. The final step is negotiation. Negotiation is a big part of sense-making that occurs between and among people that have an influence on each other when they try to reach a shared perception. Each person can interpret the same stimulus in different ways as well as organize them differently. Perception is different for every person.

The story in this chapter is “Looking at Diversity” (104). It is about a man who has had issue with the perception process since he was a little boy because he had a disorder. ADD, or attention deficit disorder, causes people to be inattentive, easily distracted, very impulsive and sometimes even hyperactive. This story states many of the issues that ADD kids face until they receive help for it. Jason said that he was singled out for not paying attention in class and he would often times blurt out whatever was on his mind. This showed me how important the perception process is and how often we take it for granted. It also explained to me how the process actually works. If you couldn’t select certain stimuli then you wouldn’t be a good communicator. That also goes for the other steps in the process. ADD proves that each and every person perceives things differently.

In this video by Jenna Marbles, it is evident that it is stereotypical of boys. Stereotyping is a part of the organization process. Stereotyping is making judgments and assumptions against members of groups in which they fit. An example is what girls do in the morning while they are getting ready for the day in the bathroom. Jenna Marbles has many videos pertaining to stereotypical thoughts. This pertains to the process of perception because we select things that are similar to what we already know or things that we have seen before. When we organize these things into groups, we generalize that they are all the same when they are in the same file. When we generalize, nothing is hurt however when we overgeneralize we are stereotyping.

I learned a lot from this chapter. I now understand why each person thinks about things differently. This helps me to see things from another person’s point of view when often times I would not understand why they didn’t see it my way. The story in this chapter helps me understand my friends that have ADD or ADHD.

Perception is defined as a set of processes used by humans to make sense of all the stimuli that we face. It is basically an interpretation about the situation we are in and it can range from the smell of the garden you are in to the sight of beautiful birds flying up in the sky. It all depends on how we interpret all these different sensations. These senses are nothing but sensory impressions we get from the stimuli in the world around us. It is perception which enables us and gives us the ability to navigate the world. It helps make decisions about everything, from which T-shirt to wear, which restaurant to go to or how fast to run away from a tiger. Suppose we close your eyes. The thoughts that run in your mind are nothing but accumulation of data. And in this data, majority of it is perception. The things you see, smell, hear and feel and you make sense out of it and this process of using your stimuli and getting an impression and making an interpretation is perception. It is an unconscious process which keeps happening as and when we come across a stimuli. This process of perception is such that it always begins with a stimulus which happens every second around us and then it ends with what we interpret from that stimulus. The very amazing thing about it is that it is an unconscious process which happens at a subtle level thousand times a day and we don’t even realize it. Now one may ask what an unconscious process is, so to make it clear an unconscious process is simply one that happens without awareness or intention. For example, the brain need not be told that it is hungry, or it is cold outside. Perception has three stages, namely selection, organization and interpretation. We will see each of the following in detail. Selection comes into the picture when there are many things and we can’t take in so much as the capacity of the brain is less therefore, we have to select the stimuli. That was in layman words. Talking about perception, the world that we live in is filled with an infinite number of stimuli that we might attend to, but our brains do not have the resources to pay attention to everything. So, our first step is Selection which means selecting what we would like to attend to. This is usually unconscious, but sometimes intentional decision. The stimuli that we select , it may be smell, sight, voice , touch or any sense perception, that becomes an attended stimuli. This is selection, the very first process of what we call as perception. The choice that we make sets off a series of reactions in our brain once we have chosen to attend to a stimulus in the environment. This might be unconscious but most of the time its conscious. The process of the nerves is called the neural process and it starts with the activation of our sensory receptors. These receptors are nothing but touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. After the activation, the receptor transforms the energy into an activity which after being tr transmitted to our brains, becomes a mental represented created by us. This representation is called as precept. At a single point in time, we can create multiple precepts. The last stage is of interpretation which happens after we have attended to a stimulus. After the organization of the information that our brain has received we interpret it in a way that makes sense using our existing information about the world. And then we turn it to something we can analyze and understand. This happens unconsciously thousands of times a day. Thus, to conclude in a simple and apt way we can say that perception is organizing, identifying and then interpreting the information we get from the various stimuli and then represent and understand the world around.

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