Selective Perception: An Example and Test

Content

Filters in the Head: How Selective Perception Tricks Us
Selective Perception: What Is The Truth Anyway?
Optical illusion: If you expect the unexpected, you overlook more important things
Selective Perception: Truth and Reality
Further articles on the topic

I can see what you can not see. - That is exactly selective perception in a nutshell.

And it works like that in that example of the following picture. But there is a problem here: if you perceive selectively, you often only see Cutouts, but draws definitive conclusions from it. Rash.

The reason for this can be prejudice. Or just a proverbial short circuit. And that does that psychological phenomenon so dangerous ...

Filters in the Head: How Selective Perception Tricks Us

Selective perception is initially based on an essential one Strength of our brain: Only then can we Distinguish important from unimportant. Every second alone, a quarter of our brain is busy seeing and filtering what we see. At every moment, umpteen light stimuli ensure that we perceive the world. How we perceive it, in turn, depends on how our brain processes and interprets this information.

Our gray cells crave for known patterns, because these can be assigned to known information more quickly and easily. Basically this is Attention blindnessAs it is also called, a pure protective mechanism: Without it, we would not be able to process the wealth of information that pours down on us every day and would go crazy.

Just for fun, do this short one test: What do you see? Or rather: what do you think you are seeing? Granted, if the article starts like this, it won't be what you might be thinking of right now.

To the dissolution

We make whole realities out of excerpts. Dangerous! And partly self-revealing.

Descartes already noticed: "What Peter says about Paul says more about Peter than about Paul." And Socrates realized that we were at immediate observations cannot unequivocally recognize the absolute truth.

Instead, our (tendentious) perception largely determines the quality of ours Decisions and actions.

Did you know that the brain automatically ignores unnecessary information?

Just like the second "that" in the first sentence.

Selective Perception: What Is The Truth Anyway?

You may know one of the most famous anecdotes and parables about this form of the Self-deception. It's the story of the King Croesus of Lydia ...

At that time Croesus asked the Oracle of Delphi whether he should march against the Persians. "If you do that," the oracle prophesied, "you will destroy a mighty empire."

What a message! Croesus was enthusiastic, downright electrified: which empire could be more powerful than that of the Persians? And the oracle had practically guaranteed that Croesus would emerge victorious from the battle. A fundamental victory, a powerful enemy empire destroyed. So Croesus went into battle haughty and certain of victory - and lost.

In his desire for a colossal triumph over his enemies, he only heard what he wanted to hear. What he overheard, if not ignored at all, was the question of which kingdom the oracle was referring to by prophecy. So King Croesus sealed his own downfall and destroyed his own kingdom Lydia.

You think: I already know that! Then read on ...

Optical illusion: If you expect the unexpected, you overlook more important things

Daniel Simons, Professor of Psychology at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, has been studying selective perception for years. In his opinion, this is one of ours most serious defects.

Undoubtedly there are people who know about it and therefore try to keep their senses constantly awake and open their perception wide. Not a good idea either. Because Simons recent studies come to the conclusion: Those who expect the unexpected often overlook even more important things.

You can try out for yourself what still sounds cryptic at this point. Please take a careful look at the following video: Some young people are playing ball there. Please count how often the ball moves back and forth between the participants in the white team:

You probably already know the video. It is now legendary.

Simons and his colleague Christopher Chabris, also a psychology professor at Union College in New York, experimented with it as early as 1999.

Of course, most of the test subjects were able to count exactly how often the ball changed - but a good half of them overlooked it gorillathat wandered through the scenery, although it could be seen for around nine seconds.

A classic case of selective perception or Attention blindness: Because everyone is concentrating on the ball players, they overlook what else is going on.

But the point is: precisely because the experiment is so well known, it hardly works today.

Simons now used this effect for a second attempt. There is also a video for this, so you can watch it too test can now undergo yourself. OK, one more time:

Before reading any further, take a close look at the video and again count the number of times the ball changes between the white players…

Of course you counted this time and also expected - and seen - the gorilla. Class!

But that affected your perception so much that you probably did overlooked saw the curtain change color and a member of the black team just disappear.

Simons' experiments showed:

Of the participants who counted on the gorilla because they knew the first video, just noticed 17 percent also the other two events.
Those who did not know the gorilla video, on the other hand, already registered in 29 percent of the cases the curtain color change and the disappearance of a team member.

Although this is not statistically significant, Simons himself admits, it makes it clear that even the unexpected can be expected, ours perception in no way improved. It is more likely the other way around.

One sees only trees, problems close together.
The other the spaces and the light.

Selective Perception: Truth and Reality

The phenomenon of selective perception is not just a visual one, but also a cognitive one.

The Great danger lies in the fact that we only confirm our already existing judgments and ideas and also wrong ones Conclusions no longer check.

We try to interpret (or fight against) even new experiences or insights that contradict our stereotypes until we no longer bother us, motto: What does not fit is made to fit.

We may then ask family, friends or colleagues for advice - and only hear and see what we want to hear and see. See you Hearing and seeing passes. So, despite good advice, we ultimately don't get a step further or even fail.

But it is also true: the regular Questioning Our perception selection is a nice mind game - but rather useless in practice, as Simons ‘experiments were able to show.

Last but not least, things are sometimes problematized that are in reality unproblematic.

In a well-known experiment, Richard Wiseman asks the test subjects to read through a newspaper and count the photos. On page two of the paper, however, he left one in bold heading to press: "You can stop counting - there are 43 photos in this newspaper". In the middle of the newspaper he had a second message printed: “Stop counting. Tell the test supervisor that you have read this and you will win £ 100. ”Test person after test skipped the two headings.

A really satisfying way out in the sense of "3 tips on how to avoid selective perception" unfortunately does not exist.

The only chance to mitigate the psychoeffect is as critical as possible self-reflection and the repeated seeking of advice from precisely those friends and independent third parties, combined with precise information To listen and to ask.

After all, a single question in the Croesus parable might have changed his fate and that prevents selective perception:

Which kingdom do you mean?