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Your Perception
The question is why your perception is different than other’s perception. The best
way to answer this question is to know the definition of perception. According to George
(2023) page 193 perception is “the detailed process of interpreting and making sense of a
combination of sensations.” Now to put those simple words, perception is how you see
and understand a situation when it is placed in front of you. What I plan to explain is why
perception varies from one person to another. I will also discuss if in fact differences in
perception indicate differences in reality.
Differences in Reality
Introduction to psychology from a Christian worldview discusses how our name
can be said in a crowd and you can hear it however, if someone else’s name is said it will
not catch your ear. This is known as a psychological process; it is due to some type of
memory that has elevated the significance of stimuli. I also like to refer to this as muscle
memory. This is why your body reacts to situations differently than others. For example,
I do not like pickles, I believe they are the absolute worse tasting food ever. The simple
sight of a pickle on my plate will make me not want my food to touch that part of the
plate. That is my perception, however, everyone in my family loves pickles therefore my
opinion is my perception and not the reality. Each person in the world has their own
perception of day-to-day situations and events that happen to them and the way they were
trained in life will dictate their perception.
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The training can go back to a theory we learned about in chapter six called
classical conditioning. I was raised eating meat in potatoes therefore that is what I love,
however I have started to try different food trying to train myself and change my
perspective and or perception (but I still do not like pickles).
How does this work?
Perception is a series of events that take place in a split second, this process is
transduction. According to George (2023) Transduction is defined as “the process of
converting a physical stimulus into a meaningful and useful neural signal capable of
being interpreted by the brain.” This is completed in this order stimulation happens, the
brain captures the reception, transduction happens, the brain then transmits the process to
perception, completing the series.
There are factors that can affect the process of perception. One example is,
experience, my wife is a registered nurse she completed her BSN in 2016, when she talks
to me a about a medical situation, she feelings are numb to the situation because she is
speaking from training. The perception of this can be that she is not caring and has no
compassion for the individual. The truth is that she is performing as the professional that
she was trained to be through years of school and experience. The same things happen to
soldiers, in a high stress combat situation our training takes over and we react to the
situation, the perception can be we are cold blooded, however when we are removed from
the situation and have time to breath the emotion of the situation hits us. This is one of
the reasons the suicide rate is so high in the military. Other factors that can affect
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perception are motivation, attention, fatigue, and expectation. All these factors can affect
someone’s overall perception.
You do you!
Throughout my life my perspective and perception has changed in many areas for
different reasons. One was divorce, I felt that this was something that I would never
experience and then one day it happened. I loved the box I lived in I worked all the time
and did not focus on my home. I thought that the way to take care of my family was to
work and spend time with my kids by coaching. My perception of family changed after
my divorce, now that I have remarried, I center my life on my family and God. I have a
better understanding of what the needs of my family are now, and I am happier because
of the change. Therefore, my perception of a happy life now translates to reality for those
around me.
References
