Transcript An introduction to human communication: Understanding and sharing.

Communication 1A
An introduction to interpersonal communication
WEEK 11
Perception and communication
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What do you see?
2
What do you see?
3
Perception is…
“Perception is complex…[it] is the process by
which you become aware of the many stimuli
impinging on your senses”.
DeVito, J., O’Rourke, S., & O’Neill, L. (2000). Human communication: The
New Zealand edition. Auckland: Pearson. p. 39
4
Stimuli
Stimuli refers to anything that we process through our senses:
• Anything we see
• Anything we hear
• Anything we touch
• Anything we smell
• Anything we taste
But because we all have different perceptual
filters, we often interpret these stimuli differently from others.
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Why do differences in perception occur?
• Physiological factors
– Everyone is physiologically different: We are made up of different
genes and we have different body characteristics.
– Our gendered characteristics and biological traits also differ us
from others.
– How we are feeling physically (whether we feel tired, energised,
hot, cold etc) also make us function and think differently from
others.
– Therefore, these all impact on our perceptual processes.
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Why do differences in perception occur?
•
Past experiences
– Often past experiences can affect the ways we see things
perceptually.
– Example: If someone was a victim of a violent crime in their home,
they may feel differently from someone else when staying home
alone at night; if they heard a noise, they may perceive it as danger.
Another person who had different past experiences may simply
ignore the noise.
– This is also known as PERCEPTUAL CONSTANCY
– The roles we have (e.g. as a son, husband, student) impact on our
perception of certain situations and communication interactions
– Our cultural identity can also impact on how we perceive things.
This will be discussed during our INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION module.
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Why do differences in perception occur?
• Present feelings and circumstances
– Different times of the day can impact on how we perceive
things. Think back to the example about hearing a noise
when staying home alone at night. The ‘night’ is the main
variable here. If we were home alone during the day, we
might not even register a noise.
– Our present mood can also affect how we react to things.
Slide 5-7 adapted from Pearson, J. C., & Nelson, P. E. (1997). An introduction to human
communication: Understanding and sharing. Madison: Brown & Benchmark
Publishers. p. 24-29
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What occurs in perception?
People engage in three separate activities during perception: selection,
organisation and interpretation. Each activity is involved in our
perceptions.
•
Selection
– “In selection we neglect some stimuli in our environment to focus on
other stimuli.”
•
Organisation
– “Organisation is the grouping of stimuli into meaningful units or
wholes.”
•
Interpretation
– “Interpretation is the assignment of meaning to stimuli”
(in other words, what our brain thinks of the stimuli).
Direct quotes on this slide cited from Pearson, J. C., & Nelson, P. E. (1997). An introduction to human
communication: Understanding and sharing. Madison: Brown & Benchmark Publishers. p. 24-29
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Perception and communication
Chase, P., O’Rourke, S., Smith, L., Sutton, C., Timperley, T., & Wallace, C. (2003). Effective
business communication in New Zealand. (3rd ed.). Auckland. Pearson Education NZ. p. 9