In this video we're going to be talking about the perception process. So the perception process is just in general a process in which we take in information or we notice information, stimuli, you could call it that, and we apply meaning to it. Later we'll talk about how this applies to communication, but for now I just want you to understand the basics of how the process works. So in general the process is just us taking in information, applying meaning to it, and organizing it, and then interpreting it.
So we do this in two ways. We do it consciously and we do it subconsciously. So subconscious would be like right now your head or your ears are taking in lots of sounds, but you're probably not paying attention to them, right?
Like say that you live by a train, like a train track, and you're used to hearing trains go by all the time. After a while, your brain will hear that. It will still pay attention to it.
but it will do so subconsciously. So you may not even notice the sound of the train, whereas your friend comes over and the first time and they're startled when they hear the train go by, right, that's going to be more of that, the subconscious, subconscious processing is called automatic processing, then you have conscious processing and conscious processing would be like your friend who heard the train go by. They're like, Whoa, what is that?
Okay, so then they they give attention to it. consciously and they process it constantly or consciously. So that keep that in mind as we as we move forward and talk about these other steps. So the first thing that we normally happens is that we we attend and select something and attend means just like you pay attention to it.
We do this for in three ways or the reason why we our brain selects and gives attention to things is really for three three potential reasons. One for need. Do you see the need in it?
You know this is why it's important. important in your in speeches to tell the audience why this information is important to them. Because if you don't think it's important to you, you're probably going to lose interest and stop paying attention, right?
So it might be need. Then there's also interest. So say you're in class listening to me, but then a text pops up and it's from one of your favorite social media sites and it seems like an interesting video.
Then you're interested in that and you're not really listening to me. You're giving your attention here. You select. that to pay attention to. And then the last thing would be expectations.
So this is like, you expect certain things to happen, especially if it's something that you do a lot, you have these expectations. But when something surprises you, you pay attention to it. Kind of like what I was saying about if your friend is over at your house and you live by a train track, they don't expect to hear a train because they don't have one by their house.
So when they hear it, their brain automatically consciously pays attention to it. because it's expecting that. So those are the three main reasons.
And in all of those examples, I kind of gave you a conscious processing approach to it, or why you would consciously pay attention to it. But I think it's important to also understand that your brain actually attends and selects so many, all the things, right? But it cannot actually, it can't literally process all of that at once and pay attention to all of it, or we would, you know, we would freak out kind of like with a newborn baby.
Babies get overwhelmed because they can't get in so much stimuli and their brain can't do the next step yet. So this next step that's actually still kind of simultaneous is organization. So like attention and selection, you know, they go hand in hand. Organization goes hand in hand with the other part of this process, which is interpretation, right? So like we were talking about with organization and selection, or not organization, sorry, attention and selection.
You are looking at certain things to pay attention to, and then your brain is deciding whether or not, you know, like consciously processing it or not or paying attention to it. So say that it's the first day of class and you are walking down the hallway trying to find your classroom. Your brain is going to pay attention to a lot of things around it.
But because it doesn't want to overload with all the information that it has, it automatically organizes what it sees and it also interprets it. So say that you're walking, you're looking for the classroom, your eyes maybe sweep over a bunch of people in a circle talking. Now, because of your past experiences, your brain understands that those are probably a group of people that know each other. You also, so it doesn't necessarily have to give a lot of attention to it, right?
It's like, okay, I know what, I organize it real quick. Like that probably looks like a bunch of people that are just friends. And so I'm just going to move on, keep looking for my room. Well, how does it do that? How does it organize and interpret that so quickly?
Well, it does so in two ways, through simplicity and also through pattern. So it sees a group of people and it automatically is going to say, okay, this is a pattern. I'm going to quickly or I'm going to simplify this.
I'm going to look at all of their clothes and I'm going to find a pattern. They all look like they're probably a similar age based on what they're wearing. They also seem like they're probably students based on the informality of their clothes.
So what you did is your brain took a large group of stimuli, like individual people, it took like six people. And it summarized that down to like group of students real fast, just based on some things that some stimuli that you that you paid attention to that your brain selected and gave attention to. And then it organized it right, like it said, okay, students usually wear this. And so that's probably a student and then it interpreted that it's probably a student. So then That brings me kind of to the last thing I want to say.
It's just that our brains are like filing cabinets, right? So while like every single experience that you have, it goes into these files that help us better and more quickly understand and perceive the world around us. That's why for you, it's very easy to walk down a hallway and see a group of people and say, okay, a group of people was probably students and take all that stimuli in and keep on going.
But if you think about like a newborn baby, who can get overstimulated very easy it's because every single thing is a new experience and the brain has no idea what something is like it's not if they a baby sees a big group of people um once they get their eyesight you know i can really see um they're not they're going to be like whoa what's this they might get a little overwhelmed because they don't know how to process that they don't they don't have files for it so i don't remember if i said this already but your brain is like a filing cabinet so like you have all these files A newborn baby doesn't have those files or these past experiences to base their interpretations off of, right? So our past experiences and what we've seen and understood about the world around us, that's really how we organize all of the information, all the stimuli we're taking in, and it's how we interpret it. It's also what helps our brain either decide to either consciously or subconsciously process things and how we get through the day quickly, even though we're taking in so much stimuli.