KOH3433 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS/

KEMAHIRAN KOMUNIKASI INTERPERSONEL

EXERCISE 3 : FACTORS INFLUENCING PERCEPTION

LECTURER : DR. SAIFUL NUJAIMI ABDUL RAHMAN

NAMA PELAJAR NO. MATRIKS

Wan Muhammad Aiman Amin bin Wan Mohd Amin 208929
 EXERCISE 3
FACTORS INFLUENCING PERCEPTION
(i) Reception
(ii) Attention
1.0 INTRODUCTION

The question, "Is the glass half empty or half full?" serves to demonstrate the way
an object can be perceived in different ways.

The processes of perception routinely alter what humans see. When people view
something with a preconceived concept about it, they tend to take those concepts and see
them whether or not they are there. This problem stems from the fact that humans are
unable to understand new information, without the inherent bias of their previous
knowledge. A person's knowledge creates his or her reality as much as the truth, because
the human mind can only imagine that to which it has been exposed. When objects are
viewed without understanding, the mind will try to reach for something that it already
recognizes, in order to process what it is viewing. That which most closely relates to the
unfamiliar from our past experiences, makes up what we see when we look at things that
we don't comprehend. Clearly our culture plays a part here, as does our past history and
experience with others.

https://creducation.net/resources/perception_checking/influences_on_perception.html
 Perception depends on complex
nervous system functions but seems
effortless because this processing happens
outside of conscious awareness. We acquire
or receive information through one or more
of the five senses: sight, hearing, smell,
touch, and taste. Perception is how we
interpret that information from our senses, to
have meaning.

Two people can have the same sensory experience but interpret the information
differently. One person might see a painting as just a messy splash of colors, while
another will consider it a masterpiece. It also involves the cognitive processes to process
information, such as recognizing a friend’s face or detecting a familiar perfume.

A few scholars define perception as follows :

According to H. Joseph Reitz, an author, “Perception includes all those processes

by which an individual receives information about his environment - seeing, hearing,
feeling, tasting and smelling.”
According to B. V. H. Gilmer, a pioneer in Industrial Psychology, “Perception is
the process of becoming aware of situations, of adding meaningful associations to
sensations.”
Uday Pareek, the chairman of the India Academy of Human Resource
Development and of the Institute of Developmental Research and Statistics said
perception can be defined as “the process of receiving, selecting, organizing, interpreting,
checking, and reacting to sensory stimuli or data.”
According to S. P. Robbins, a professor and author of management books,
perception can be defined as “the process by which individuals organize and interpret
their sensory impressions to give meaning to their environments.”
Let us look into two factors that influence perception namely reception and
attention.
(i) RECEPTION

Perception is the process of organizing, analyzing, and consciously

perceiving sensory data from the environment. It’s the way we comprehend or
interpret what’s going on around us, based on points of view and experiences.

https://www.studysmarter.us/explanations/psychology/sensation-and
perception/influences-on-perception/

It is the conscious reception, selection, processing and interpretation of

information by our brain via all senses. (H W Franz, 2009). According to
Cambridge Dictionary, reception is the way in which people react to something or
someone.

Stuart Hall developed a reception theory, popularly known as Audience

Theory or reader’s reception theory, in 1973. His essay ‘Encoding and Decoding
Television Discourse’ focuses on the encoding and decoding of the content given
to the audience no matter what the form of media is, such as magazines / papers,
television / radios, games. This reception theory concept points out that, a movie,
book, or game events though it has none / some inherent meaning, the audience
who watch them or experience it make a meaning. The audience comes into an
understanding of the happenings of the text or screen.

Encoding – The encoded messages usually contains shared rules and

symbols common with other people. So the encoder or sender has to think how
the receiver will perceive the message. Decoding – Decoding would be a
successful deliver only if the message sent by the encoder is understood
completely to its content as it was intended.
The audience receives the creative work done and perceives to its content
in either similar or different. The meaning of the message can change in the way
they see it fit according to their social context . The messages sent with
verbal/non-verbal cues and gestures don’t bring the same result always as
intended by the sender, bringing an altogether different meaning an insight to the
concept sent. Thus, the distortion occurs when the audience cannot understand the
concept of having a different take on the conclusion itself. Such distortion can be
because of the age, gender, religion, race, political views, ethnicity, class, culture
and the mood in which the audience receive the message.

It is difficult to gather the information necessary to analyze every single

audience’s experience. So the media houses come in as a useful tool to reach the
bigger mass as to get to know their experience and understanding. Press releases,
other forms of publicity such as advertisements, the fan letters, celebrity words,
fan message boards, reviews, serve as useful materials to see how the reception
has been.

There are three categories of audience and their reception. First, those who
receive the message / information as it is. For example, a mother asking her son to
clean his room. The son understood and did the task.

Second are those who are aware that the acts in a movie are bad but accept
it because they believe there is a reason behind it. For example, fiction movies
like Zombie, Dracula or Frankenstein.

Third are those that has none acceptance on the certain concept of movies
which will make them, reject the idea. It can be morally wrong, emotionally
disturbing, unnecessary adult contents of violence and blood gore, religious
belief, political outlooks For example, in 1970s - 1980s was an era in Indian
Films, later known as Bollywood, they showed smoking as a sign of prestige,
image, wealth, power and flourishing happiness whereas, the reality states
otherwise, for it causes cancer. In reality it is an unpleasant smell and is perceived
as a very unhealthy habit.
(ii) ATTENTION

The world around us 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. Thus, we choose to select. Selecting is the first part of the perception
process, in which we focus our attention on certain incoming sensory
information. In selection, we choose stimuli that attract our attention. We focus
on the ones that stand out to our senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch).
We take information through all five of our senses, but our perceptual field
includes so many stimuli that it is impossible for our brains to process and make
sense of it all. It is a mental process which makes us pay attention to things we
feel are right, completely ignoring the indicators of we being wrong. We very
conveniently ignore things that aren’t in favor of what you feel is right.

Selective perception can also take place in case of the presence of

stimulus that triggers emotional discomfort. You choose to ignore or easily forget
about the things that are capable of causing you emotional pain or discomfort.

Let us look at a few examples of selective perception. You completely

ignore the fact that you had an argument with your spouse only because you are
scared of an emotionally confrontation.

You are left in charge of selecting a team for a soccer game coming up
next week which you need to win by all means. The team can be a combination of
both boys and girls and you end up selecting more boys than girls only because
you expect boys to be better than girls in soccer. That’s selective perception based
on your expectations, beliefs or even bias.

Do you recollect a time when you were ill and even having a meeting with
the doctor made you feel better? It’s because you expect to heal or to be cured in a
hospital. That’s again selective perception.
 You have had cough or fever for a week now and you blame it on the
weather or say that you can taste and smell things just to avoid getting yourself
tested for Covid and having the report to be positive. This is also selective
perception, to be specific it is a type of selective perception, perceptual defense.

In order to avoid completing your assignment you keep yourself busy in

doing other things by telling yourself that they are more important than your
assignments. This is again a very simple example of selective perception.

CONCLUSION

The selection, organization, and interpretation of perceptions can differ among

different people. On the basis of these, the perceptual output, which means, values,
attitudes, or behavior of the perceiver may differ. Therefore, when people react
differently in a situation, part of their behavior can be explained by examining their
perceptual process, and how their perceptions are leading to their responses.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

B. Von Haller Gilmer (1970) Psychology, Harper & Row Publishing

Franz, HW., Sarcina, R. (2009). Basic concepts of perception and communication. (eds) Building
Leadership in Project and Network Management. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

H. Joseph Reitz (1977) Behavior In Organizations Irwin Series In Management And The
Behavioral Sciences, R. D. Irwin Publishing.

Udai Pareek (2007). Organisational Culture And Climate.  ICFAI University Press.

Stephen P. Robbins (2018) Organizational Behaviour Best for Management Course, 18th
Edition Pearson

https://www.communicationtheory.org/category/communication-models/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_theory#:~:text=Reception%20theory%20is%20a
%20version,the%20analysis%20of%20communications%20models.
https://creducation.net/resources/perception_checking/influences_on_perception.html
https://www.studysmarter.us/explanations/psychology/sensation-andperception/influences-on-
perception/
https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756841/obo-
9780199756841-0134.xml