The aim of this study was to further investigate whether the interpretation of an ambiguous stimulus is influenced by immediate past experience, and, therefore, by the establishment of a perceptual set. It is based on an experiment conducted by Bugelski and Alampay (1961).
It was hypothesized that interpretation of an ambiguous stimuli that can be perceived as either a rat or a human face will be influenced by the context under which they view the figure and their past experience with other figures. That is they will be influenced by their perceptual set.
The results from this study supported the hypothesis with the results showing that 88.9% of the participants shown animals perceived the ambiguous figure to be an animal. In group B 80% of participants shown faces perceived the ambiguous figure to be a face.
In conclusion perceptual set, past experience and context play a major role in how humans perceive what they see in day to day life and have a huge influence on what we think we see.
Is it a rat or is it a man?
How accurate is human perception? How confident should courts be in using eye witness testimony? Is it possible that people really only see what they want, or expect to see?
Human beings take their perception for granted; in fact most would agree they have little choice. This however does not mean that human perception is always accurate. Psychological factors can have a profound influence on how humans interpret in coming sensory stimuli.
A perceptual set is the inclination to recognize stimuli in accordance with certain expectations that often cause us to select certain aspects of the visual stimuli to be organized and interpreted, yet to ignor ...