Observation Skills (Course Guide)

Observation and What You Perceive With Your Senses

Perception is the process of making sense of the information we take in with our senses. We identify, organize and interpret this sensory information to in order understand and represent environmental stimuli.

Perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, which in turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sensory system. Seeing involves light hitting the retina; smell involves odor molecules; and hearing is a response to pressure waves.

Our individual perception is determined by our past experiences - what we learned about the world, our memories, and our expectations. Perception is also influenced by culture, ethnicities values, and beliefs.

Because each person assigns different value to each of these influences, the same object or event is perceived differently by different people. Although our eyes may see the same thing, we filter, focus, and perceive it differently. This is why multiple eye witnesses to the same crime often have very different descriptions of the same suspect or event.

Source (https://ccmit.mit.edu/observation/ page 4)

Perception 

Look at the blue and gold image in the square directly below.

• Does your brain direct you to see faces or a vase first?

Image Source: Battaglia, Dr. Demian, Highly flexible despite hard-wiring – even slight stimuli change the information flow in the brain

In the classic vase optical illusion pictured above, neurons in the brain must decide whether the border between blue and gold belongs to the blue area or to the gold area. These neurons determine whether you perceive the image as either a gold vase on a blue background, or blue faces on a gold background.

Perception involves:

• detecting
• recognizing
• characterizing 
• responding to stimuli 

Each of our five senses offers a different way of knowing about the external world. We use our senses in the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting information that helps us make sense of our environment.  

The human experience is complicated and rich because of the way that information from the senses is coordinated and integrated.

Image Source: Pixy.org Copyright: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Perceptual Strategies in the Workplace

• Become an active perceiver
  • actively seek out as much information as possible
  • placing yourself in the new culture, group, or co-culture can often expand your understanding
• Recognize each person’s unique frame of reference
  • understand we all perceive the world differently
  • recognize that even though you may interact with two people from the same culture, they are individuals with their own set of experiences, values, and interests
• Recognize that people, objects, and situations change
  • recognizing that people and cultures, like communication process itself, are dynamic and ever changing can improve communication
• Become aware of the role perceptions play in communication
  • perception is an important aspect of the communication process
  • understand that our perceptions are not the only ones possible 
• Keep an open mind
  • being open to differences can improve communication
• Check your perceptions
  • ​​​​​​​by learning to observe, and acknowledging our own perceptions, we can avoid assumptions, expand our understanding, and improve our ability to communicate across different values, beliefs, and cultural systems

Source: "Getting to Know Your Audience." Business Communications for Success. OER. 2012