Human Perception and its Drawbacks

Perception is the way humans form an understanding of the information we receive. When we create an understanding of something in our heads, many influencing factors come into play subconsciously. Sometimes, we are filtering out information without even realizing it, which is a prime example of selective attention and selective retention. In the excerpt from Perception in Mass Media, the authors present this idea and explain how it can influence the way we think and see. Perception can be influenced by many factors, for instance selective attention. Selective attention is when an individual will only search for information that supports their claim and disregard any refuting evidence. For example, if I were pro-choice regarding the abortion debate, I would only search for facts that support the benefits of abortion. I would ignore all facts that go against my stance. This is similar to selective retention, as the only difference is that I would listen to and look for evidence against my claim, but I wouldn’t embed it into my memory or really hold it to any value. Therefore, it still has the same effect as selective attention. This is one example of how our perceptions can be altered by our personal biases. Another example of perception interference is cultural value. Sometimes, if we are accustomed to certain ways of interpreting and doing things, we will attempt to make sense of foreign things in relation to our familiarities. For example, a study that Bagby conducted indicated to us how prevalent this can be in our own lives. When shown two different cultural images in each eye, we tend to see the image closer to our own culture before we make sense of the image of the other culture that we are less familiar with. This study proved that our cultures can also influence how we perceive information around us. Another example of how our perceptions can be shifted is through subliminal messaging. This relates closely to today’s widespread advertisements and general media. By planting secret messages in videos, companies can influence us, the viewers, to think differently of their brand without us knowing. Even though the authors refute the effectiveness of subliminal messaging, it is still used in mass media as a further attempt at manipulating the way we see things to their benefit. The big corporate side of the world has become exploitative of human tendencies and it doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon with technology and media becoming more and more advanced. If we continue multiplying our reliance on technology like we are today, we may end up destroying ourselves because of greed.