 Something we don't think about a lot when we consider our listening and effective listening skills is perception but it's such a massive part of the entire listening process in terms of How we're choosing what to listen to and what we're going to hear that element of discriminative listening, right? And then how we perceive and shape those things in our own minds is is really significant We're going to talk about perception and how it impacts listening Specifically we've been talking about listening through the hurryer model H-u-r-i-e-r and of course each of those letters represents a word there So you know hearing understanding remembering interpreting evaluating and responding are the different elements involved in the hurryer model Specifically with perception we're going to focus on that element of hearing and over the very first part of this process hearing What are we choosing to listen to how are we interpreting and shaping those sounds really and just you know Just that that whole hearing process as part of the listening process Of course you remember the hurryer model kind of lays out like this with the each of the letters and representing a word that There's different elements that are in there So we have an entirely different video on the hurryer model feel free to check it out But but this is where we're just placing perception within the hearing aspect of The listening process in the hurryer model So the process of perception and there's a process for everything in communication right everything breaks down into a process So perception does have a very specific process We go through different stages when we perceive something and it happens really really quickly So we don't always think about breaking it down in these nice little nuggets But but but this is how it happens really so we start with selection Essentially just deciding what we're going to pay attention to which stimuli are we going to focus on and really Allow our brain to and our senses to really focus on as part of that. So selection. What are we going to pay attention to then organization? How does this fit into our knowledge of the world into the scope of things that we understand of the world and how do we Categorize these things just in kind of a broad sense then selection also does involve of course interpretation How do we make sense of those things and given our frame of reference our culture our background our values our knowledge our history with these things Interpretation plays a major factor and then in many instances. We also get in a negotiation We're we're negotiating the reality of these things with other people and the perception of these things You know with other people our perception their perception we're negotiating that we're really going to focus on the first three stages here The first parts of the process of perception selection organization interpretation in our discussion here To start off though, I'd like to ask you to do a little activity with me Okay, I really just want you to look at this picture and tell me what you see That's it. What are you seeing when you look at this at this picture? Well, you may be noticing a couple of things you hopefully you're seeing at least one thing I mean you may be noticing that there and this is one of those images that actually has a couple of different things going on in it You may be seeing what some people would describe as an older woman like an old old lady Right, maybe a witch or something. She's got a big nose and you're looking at her on profile So you're seeing just the one half of her face It's got like a bonnet on or something like that So you may be seeing that but you may also be seeing an image of a younger woman Well, people describe as a younger woman kind of looking away off into the distance. You're only seeing a part of her face You're not seeing your full face even in profile But she does seem to be younger still kind of old-fashioned or whatever. Maybe you're seeing both That's okay. Whatever you're seeing is fine. There's your nose secret to this I'm not trying to establish whether or not you're a serial killer or something by this Though the point is that That we see different things in this we can't see some people see both things some people see only one Until it's explained to them a little bit But whatever the case you're going through the process perception here So the process of pressure perceptions I said starts with selection. So selection says pay attention to this This is what I want you to focus on and I actually said that and then I directed your attention to this picture So selection had to do with you're paying attention to this picture and to what's going on here You're not paying attention to what's on the TV or what you're trying to read or what you're going to do for dinner Those types of things your attention your focus is right here and on this image that's selection Organization looks at this and says, okay, that's a person, you know for most of us We look at it pretty quickly and say that's a person. That's a face. That's you know, I've seen people before That's what they look like. That's what I'm looking at here. And so we know it's a it's a it's a person It's not a cow. It's not an automobile. It's not, you know picture of a the Amazon Rainforest or anything like that. This is a picture of a person an image of a person We just categorize it generally like okay organizations as this is a person Then we get into Interpretation we start looking at some details here and we start saying okay if you're looking at the older one Again, some people that first of all the fact is she old is she an old woman? And if so is she a witch some people get the kind of the bump on her nose and say well That's that's something witches have right in the stories. They got that bump on her nose So it's clearly she's a witch and so but that's all interpretation based on what you're seeing and what your History is and you know if you've had a lot of experience with witches then maybe you see that or if you're seeing the younger woman You know your interpretation is first of all a that she's younger. We don't know that which I mean That's a personal interpretation and and be that she's old-fashioned We don't really know that I mean she's kind of dressed like that But maybe it's for that she's playing a character in a play or maybe she's going to a festival or something like that Where she's dressed so we don't really know what you know these things But we make interpretations our mind kind of fills in those gaps Based on our experiences based on our knowledge based on our understanding of the world We make interpretations and we and we jump to conclusions about these things as a matter of a course in trying to Move the world along a little faster right and all this happens just like that quickly We go through selection organization interpretation just about as quickly as we can blink or snap our fingers We do all this kind of automatically and without really consciously thinking about it for the most part and we do it Instantaneously almost what we make these really quick judgments and get to these conclusions part of us just a survival instinct It's one of the way you know as as our big core human nature back in the day We would need to immediately identify what's a predator and what's potential prey for us What what's dangerous and what's not what presents an opportunity and what presents a threat? So to we're in the habit of just making these snap decisions and jumping to these conclusions But that's how perception works. We identify what it is. We're gonna pay attention to them We generally categorize it then we start applying interpretation based on our own experiences and things So now we know the process, but how does all this work? Where does all this come from first of all? So let's take a look at some of the influences on Perceptions some of the some of the things that influence our perception of things One of them one of the key factors is access to information. What are you familiar with? What are you aware of in the world? What do you know about those things tend to be less sort of? Frightening for us in a sense, right when we know something about it Then we tend to be less scared of it But when we don't have access to that information then it can be a little more attentive, right if we're used to being around You know weapons for example if you're used to being around guns you have access to that information You've been taught how to properly handle a gun and use a gun and fire a gun and so forth Then you're probably not gonna be as nervous around it with somebody You know if you find yourself in a situation where somebody says hey, this is again You want to go try it out But if you don't then that could be very frightening for you to come across a gun and you have no experience no No information about that previously other than you know what you see in movies and reading books and things that can be scary So access to information will influence our perception of something our physiological Aspects influence these things so there are physiological influence physiological just meaning the body So we're influenced by things that that are related to our body. So for example our senses Influence how we perceive things if if you know and we know that if you have Are somewhat limited in a particular sense Then that will affect your view of the world in the way that you engage with things in the way that you encounter things if you have Limited eyesight or you're blind or you know I'd say I wear contacts and glasses and if I don't have those and I can't see anything that severely in fact Upsets how I perceive the world if I can't see it, you know, but everything's blurry But you know waiting for you know, we're thinking about all of our senses And if one of those is limited or one of them is particularly strong that will affect our perception of a situation Our age we see things differently as we get older And you're not only your knowledge of the world changes your information changes your access to information, but you're you know Our body's change and our senses change and all this kind of stuff It's very different to experience something when you're five as opposed to when you're 75, right? So or even you know, 35 or 55 or anything along those Anything along that route is going to be different for it. So our age affects our perception of things Our health and our fatigue if we are if we are sick or we are Overtired then that will affect our the way we perceive something You know our world kind of shrinks right when we're not feeling well Our world just kind of shrinks down to what's immediately in front of us And when we're tired, we just don't see things as clearly when perceived things differently and so That's a physiological influence on our perception in general our biological cycles Are you a morning person? Are you an evening person our night owl? Right, then that will affect if you're a night owl and it's first thing in the morning And you haven't had your coffee or whatever then your perception is probably not going to be a sharp And the same is true if you're if you're a morning person and it's getting later at night You're probably get your senses are going to be a little more dulled your perception is going to be different So our biological cycles in that regard will affect our perception as well our hunger. Are we hungry? I mean you get hangry right here again You're your perception narrows down to just what is it that's going to get me some food So that can be a significant factor in perception as well And then neuro behavioral challenges if you have add adht Something like that some sort of Neuro behavioral Issue then then that will affect your perception of the world the way you see the world Autism for example is is sort of an extreme example of that But it affects the way we view the world if you have some sort of social anxiety or something like that Then that would affect your perception and the way that you interact and the way that you see things So all of these different kinds of physiological influences that have to do with our body will influence our perception Additionally, we can have some different psychological influences now. We just talked about some add things like that But those are Physiologically based right they are they are physiological They have to do a lot of times with our mind and things but they really have to do with An imbalance in chemicals or something like that So it's it's more of a physiological influence when we talk about psychological influences We're talking about things like our mood You know what our mood just kind of settles in on us. We don't we don't have any specific It's not a triggered thing Sometimes we just kind of wake up on the wrong side of the bed You're in a good mood or you're in a bad mood or whatever That will affect our perception how we view things how we take things right We're going to you know respond very differently depending on our mood Our self concept is a psychological influence that also affects our perception as well Right that that if we feel good about ourselves, then we're going to take something one way And if we don't feel as good about ourselves or if we have doubt about something Within ourselves, then we're going to take a comment or Or when we're confronted with the situation, we're going to handle it very differently than we would otherwise So we have these different psychological influences as well that affect perception And as we cannot underestimate the the role of social influences on perception Right so these are extremely impactful as well things like sex and gender roles our expectations for You know what guys do this and women do that and you can't cross those over right And when we see a woman who's welding or we see a guy who's caring for An infant or something or doing laundry then we look at them we think well that's that can be strange right because our social Roles for sex and gender say well those are kind of you know and that's changing of course But those are different right they make them stand out and it affects our perception of that situation and of that person Occupational roles we spend a lot of time learning about a particular occupation and then actually performing that occupation When we're doing our work right we prepare for these careers and we work in these careers and that affects the way we see the world One classic way to view this is if you have people walking through the woods What would they interpret from that experience? So just to give you an example my I have two brothers One is an educator and one is a pastor and then of course i'm a communication person That's that's my area of study. So if the three of us were walking through the woods What kind of experience might we have just based on those heavy occupational views? So my brother who's an educator may be walking through looking at things saying I wonder what kind of lesson plan I can get out of this or what kind of field trip would be appropriate for the kids If I brought them out here, how could I use this to better? Their education Because that's his mindset. He thinks about things through the view of an educator My brother who's a pastor may be looking at things and thinking about you know, wonderful god's creation Is and how he might be able to use this to to reach people and to Factor it into a sermon for a lesson plan or something. You know those types of things Whereas I'm looking at the at the woods thinking. Okay. This to me is a system It's amazing how this system works and it's interconnected because I think in terms of organizational communication And how this, you know, how this there's this symbiosis and this This interaction between all these things in the system And how can I use that to better my understanding of communication and to to help others improve their communication as well? So I mean our occupational roles play a major Part in the way that we see the world and affects our perception at all times that when we have these occupational roles So anyway another social influences relational roles things change dramatically when you become a parent You see the world in a very different way. First of all when you have you have newborns and children You know toddlers and things everything is a danger, right? I can't I can't express to you that As and when I was younger I saw nothing as a danger I was invincible and so was everybody else, right? But as soon as I became a parent Everything is a danger Every possible thing around your home is dangerous and that's all you can see And that's all you can do is worry about these kids for the next, you know 50 years of your life and and those relational roles Significantly change your perception of the world And so when you're a parent when you would change your view when you're you know, I have a big family Several siblings and I saw that as different than People who were an only child or things it just changes and again not a better or worse thing but just Different our perception of things was different the way we view the world was different So these kinds of relational roles will also influence your perception Finally we have these cultural influences Our culture plays a significant impact in the way we view the world culture affects everything of course, but But the way that we we talk about culture meaning is made up of these symbols Language values and norms and those are all significant impacts in the way we see the world and the way we perceive things So when we have people from different cultures, they will obviously perceive things in a very different way So and now that we know the influence of perception kind of where all this comes When we throw all that in a blender and we come out with our perception of things and how we tend to see things But we also have some common tendencies and perceptions So I want to talk about those for just a second here some things that we tend to do that We need to be cautious of a lot of times I mentioned this before but snap judgments we tend to jump to conclusions We have these snap judgments we see things and it's part of a survival instinct But we got to be careful about not making these snap judgments Or at least allowing for the fact that those snap judgments may not always be a hundred percent correct That we've got to allow for New information to come in and change our judgment change our interpretation of a thing Based on new information and new evidence and that we come across then so we're going to make these snap judgments We got to be careful of that and allow for new information as well We got to be careful not to be overly reliant on first impressions. We tend to cling to these first impressions And and how we perceive people from the first moment we meet them And and maybe accurate in that moment But you know the the moment that you meet somebody is not always The person that they are all the time right for better or for worse than somebody may make a really good impression on you And then over time even though they turn out to be a jerk It takes us a while to get there because our first impression is is so strong We hold onto that so strongly and vice versa when somebody's a real jerk when we meet them Maybe they're just having a bad day and they're really a good person But but we have trouble letting that go because that first time we met them. They were a real jerk We got to be careful with first impressions We tend to be more charitable to others. I'm sorry to ourselves than others So if you did poorly on a test then it's probably because the professor's an idiot and asked poor questions And you know didn't prepare you very well, right somebody else did poorly on a test It's probably because they didn't study as not as much as they needed to If you did well and they didn't you know we just as a natural tendency We tend to be more charitable to ourselves. So we need to be cautious of that and be aware of that We're also influenced by our expectations. This is fact Factors very much into what we would call self-fulfilling prophecy That that kind of what we expect to see our natural biases tend to have us see it that way or tend to Because we expect something to happen a certain way We tend to kind of shape it that way in our mind to perceive it that way So we're influenced by our expectations. We need to be cautious of that We also need to be cautious about not being influenced by the obvious You know just because that's what we saw doesn't mean that's the whole story doesn't mean that's what's happening Sometimes we think about this in terms of you know, the kids on the playground And and there's that there's a you know scuffle going on and by you know by the time the teacher turns around and sees anything They're only seeing that the last student pushed somebody down But they didn't see all the stuff leading up to that. They didn't see the other student who got pushed in their opinion Calling names and pulling hair and pushing themselves and so forth But but that teacher can only go on what they saw really so they're influenced by the obvious So that one student who did the push maybe they only did that one thing and they were the one being bullied or one being whatever But we're influenced by the obvious we're influenced by what we see and what stands out to us the most We also assume others to be like ourselves got to be careful of that not everybody is like us It's a natural inclination to just assume that everybody is like you because of course you're in your right mind And so everybody else who's in the right mind must be the same as you right But not necessarily so we need to be cautious that we don't just make an assumption that everybody else is the same as us So one thing we can do real real simply and this is really important in hearing too in terms of you know If we're not hearing something we're not sure what we're hearing We can we can run what we call a perception check and a perception check is just a really simple way To to identify That what we're hearing is correct and make sure we're hearing things correctly and understanding things correctly It's assertive, but it's not not aggressive. That's important too So when we think about a perception check there are just really three simple steps to this perception check First is to offer a description of the behavior Not an evaluation of the behavior not a complaint about the behavior just a description a fact based description of what is happening Okay, presumably this is a behavior that That that that you had identified as something that wasn't going to happen anymore And it is or something like that But you're just providing a description of the behavior in a factual sense Then you're going to offer two possible interpretations of that behavior And it's important that there be two of them because first of all that opens the door to say to the other person You know, even if it's not either of these two things that you're open to You know, I'm not sure what's going on here. I need you to explain it to me I need more information So it just isn't made like a statement of fact as though you know what's going on and the other person is wrong and so forth That would be more aggressive But this is assertive You're identifying something that's happening that you need to follow up on and you're offering two possible interpretations And identifying those as but also opening the door then because there are two to say You know, it could be these things it could be something else. I don't know And then finally just a request for clarification to say what's happening. What's going on here Well, can you explain this for me or to me? Can you help me out with this? So if we take the example of you know, if you have two neighbors, right? You have neighbors and one neighbor has A shrub that keeps growing over you from bushes that they keep letting grow over a tree or something They keep letting grow over the fence across the yard or whatever And so maybe this is something you've talked about with your neighbor before I need you to if you And they've agreed. Yeah, I'll maintain that and I'll keep it from You know affecting your yard by coming through the fence or over the fence or whatever and I'll help with I'll help you with that But then it starts to happen again, you know, it's it's happened now a couple times and it's happening again So you want to address it with the with the neighbor, but you don't want to be aggressive You got to live with this person next to this person, right? So you don't want to be overly aggressive, but you want to really get this fixed and find out what's happening So you might go to that person and run a perception check you might say to them in a description of the behavior Hey, you know, I you know if you recall we talked a few months ago about you know, maintaining the the Plants and the bushes and the trees and things on either side of our fence so that it doesn't go over in the other person's yard And creating a problem there and we talked about that and we had both agreed to do that in the past But it's have I see this is happening again. So that's the description of the behavior Right, you're not saying hey jerk get your plant off on my fence and so forth. You're just describing This is what happened in the past. This is what we agreed to and now this is factually What's happening now, right? So you're just laying out the facts Then you're going to offer two possible interpretations and say I just I didn't know if you'd forgotten that We had that conversation or if I didn't know if you'd just been really busy and haven't been able to do that I'm able to maintain that so I just want and then I request for clarification I just wanted to check in with you to see what was happening with that With that that plant or that bush or that tree or whatever And it opens up that dialogue though really it opens it up in an assertive way But not in an aggressive way the other person feels trapped in a corner and And so forth. So hopefully it opens up that dialogue so that you can start that conversation And then continue to work towards a solution That's it. That's a simple perception check and I know it sounds really kind of simple and silly, but it actually works It's very effective in these types of situations. So if you're in a situation where You actually don't know what's happening and you need to check your perception in that regard or You want to bring up a sensitive topic but not Be aggressive about it because that can more often lead to conflict than anything else, right? And that's not going to be necessarily beneficial. So you want to come to some sort of assertive Reasonable solution to this a perception check can be a great way to do that. It can be a great way to do that But in any case Perception is such a massive part of the hearing process and the listening process overall When we have these stimuli come in through selection, we're selecting we're discriminatively listening We're paying attention to this Then we go through the perception process when we hear these things that the at the first thing we do Is trying to organize and interpret this information. And so that's why we're including this in the hearing aspect of the hurryer model because It really does happen at the very very initial outset Of the listening process along with this So I hope you can see how perception fits in here with listening overall and particularly with hearing If you have questions about perception about hearing about listening about any of this Please feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you there in the meantime I hope that you will give great consideration to your own perception The way that your perception affects these different things and and plays a role in the listening process So the better that we understand that the closer we are to becoming a more effective listener