Page 2 - Sensory, Attentional and Perceptual Processes

b) Expectations or Perceptual Sets
1. The expectations about what we might perceive in a given situation also

influence our perception.
2. This phenomenon of perceptual familiarisation or perceptual
generalisation reflects a strong tendency to see what we expect to see even
when the results do not accurately reflect external reality.
c) Cognitive Styles
1. Cognitive style refers to a consistent way of dealing with our
environment.
2. It significantly affects the way we perceive the environment. There are

several cognitive styles that people use in perceiving their environment.
3. One most extensively used in studies is the “field dependent and field
independent” cognitive style.
4. Field dependent people perceive the external world in its totality, i.e. in a
global or holistic manner.
5. On the other hand, field independent people perceive the external world

by breaking it into smaller units, i.e. in an analytic or differentiated
manner.
d) Cultural Background and Experiences
1. Different experiences and learning opportunities available to people in
different cultural settings also influence their perception.
2. People coming from a pictureless environment fail to recognise objects in
pictures.
3. Hudson studied the perception of pictures by African subjects, and noted

several difficulties.
4. Many of them were unable to identify objects depicted in pictures (e.g.,
antelope, spear).
5. They also failed to perceive distance in pictures, and interpreted pictures
incorrectly.
6. Eskimos have been found to make fine distinction among a variety of

snow that we may be unable to notice.

PRINCIPLES OF PERCEPTUAL ORGANISATION

The process of organising visual field into meaningful wholes is known as form
perception. Several scholars have tried to answers to questions like how different parts
of an objects into a meaningful whole. But the most widely accepted answer has been