The Influence of Perceptual Sets

An associate faculty at Mission College in Santa Clara, California, Robert Fettgather Ph.D. teaches general psychology, abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, and psychiatric interviewing. Dr. Robert Fettgather has co-authored several papers on social issues. He is interested in research on sensation and perception.

Perception considers the interpretation of sensation and seems to follow some basic guiding principles. It should be noted that individual and cultural differences in perception have been reported. It is process by which people take all the sensations they experience at any given moment and interpret them in some meaningful fashion.

The principle of figure-ground relationships can be illustrated by looking at reversible figures, which are visual illusions in which the figure and ground seem to switch back and forth. Closure refers to the brain's tendency to complete figures that are incomplete.

Visual perception of depth, referred to as depth perception, seems to be present in childhood at a very early age. Visual cues for depth that necessitate the use of just one eye are called monocular cues. Visual cues that use both eyes are referred to as binocular cues and include both convergence as well as binocular disparity.

In addition to cultural and individual differences, perceptions can be influenced by perceptual sets or expectancies as noted in the introduction. One example of perceptual expectancy is top-down processing. This happens  when an individual utilizes pre-existing knowledge to place certain features into an organized whole. If there is no expectancy to help organize information, a person might use bottom-up processing to build a complete perception by making sense of the smaller features piece by piece. With a friend, try this experiment from Martin Bolt: print on a piece of paper the words below. Then read aloud these three words as your friend looks at the words and reads along with you:

FOLK CROAK SOAK

Next, immediately ask, what do you call the white of an egg? That expectation tricks the friend into a wrong answer, yolk! 

Stress Reduction Strategies.

A resident of Grass Valley, California, Robert Fettgather is an associate faculty member at Mission College in Santa Clara. Robert Fettgather has also served as a stress management trainer, certified by the Institute for Personality and Ability Testing. In his spare time, Robert Fettgather enjoys meditation and exercise routines.

We should all employ the practice of gratitude and counting one's blessings daily. And always strive to find new experiences that impart meaning to life. At the same time, have a forgiving attitude, even when someone does something mean-spirited or harmful. For example, if someone cuts you off on the highway, let go, take a few deep breaths, and repeat an affirmation such as “It’s fine, I am safe and uninjured, let’s move on.”

To reduce the stress of daily life, you can try reframing or examining a stressful or negative facet of life and describing it in a neutral or positive way. This act may help you distance yourself from the emotions invested in the negative experience and gain a new vantage point. Another effective way to reduce stress is to avoid “negative escapes” such as substance abuse, excessive eating, or uncontrolled spending. Instead, emphasize healthy mental processes such as mindfulness as a foundation for working through life challenges. 

Exercise helps. Elliptical machines are fitness machines used by standing on two rimmed platforms that move forward and back in an elliptical pattern. They are popular in both households and health clubs. The machines allow low-impact workouts that benefit both the upper and lower body. Elliptical machines also enable high-intensity interval training (a combination of an interval that requires maximum effort during the first segment) and steady-state cardio workouts (doing one exercise for a longer period of time) that help strengthen the heart, lungs, and muscles. They also improve stamina.

Learning Lessons For Everyday Life

Robert Fettgather has served as Special Consultant in psychometrics to the Departments of Education and Developmental Disabilities for the State of California. Moreover, Robert Fettgather holds a specialist credential in learning handicapped and community college credentials in both learning and developmental disabilities. Learning and cognition are among Robert Fettgather's key interests.

Learning is any relatively permanent change in behavior brought about by experience or practice.  For example, think about children. Do they seem to learn more efficiently through verbal instruction or experience?  According to Jennifer Zosh "toddlers learn new words more effectively by using their knowledge about the world to infer the label of an object, rather than by simply being instructed and told which word goes with which object" (emphasis added).  In this comparison, "using" is experiential and means "involvement". Besides toddlers, for many of us, being told or being instructed may be less effective for learning than immersion and total involvement.

Consider ths well known quotation:‘Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.’ Interestingly, there hve been various attributuons for this saying including Benjamin Franklin and the ancient Confucian philosopher Xunzi. Regardless of its origin, there is significance to the act of doing as it applies to learning processes. 

Learning theory has its roots in the work of Thorndike, Pavlov, Skinner, and many others. Let's think about an applied example of behaviorism-- and that is just how terrible many of us are at applying these principles in our own lives! For example, sometimes I fail to voice appreciation for the behaviors I like from loved ones, friends, and colleagues-that amounts to an extinction intervention. In other words, I am making those wonderful actions less likely to occur in the future. 

And in frustration, I have been known to give a lot of attention to behavior I don't like from these very same folks. That can take the form of exasperation, complaining or a frown. With a child, it can be a scolding that provides attention and thus reinforces an undesired behavior. And of course, sometimes we resort to scolding friends and lovers too!

Read to That Child!

 

Robert Fettgather is a co-founder of Tashi Lhunpo Buddhist Sangha in Palo Alto, California. While a student of Buddhism and a teacher of psychology, he also engages in activism and advocacy in an effort to serve his community. Robert Fettgather is an avid reader.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under two. The Academy further recommends that--

“Reading regularly with young children stimulates optimal patterns of brain development and strengthens parent-child relationships at a critical time in child development, which, in turn, builds language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that last a lifetime...”

Reflection Point: What would you say to a person who claimed that reading to an infant or a toddler is a waste of time because of their limited language skills?  If a toddler doesn’t want to be read to, do you think his parents or teachers should try to get him interested in books? If so, how do you think they should go about it?

Some classics are very readable after all. “You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book!” – Dr. Seuss

Think about this: some studies have noted that young children whose parents read to them daily have been exposed to at least 290,000 more words (wow) by the time they enter kindergarten than kids who aren’t read to regularly. Expanding language and vocabulary, not to mention social connections between parent and child, are very worthwhile, indeed.