My Reaction to Fisher's "Perception of Self"

What do you see? A vase or...?

Over the past six years, the Fisher article in our Reader has become of my favorites. It is good for our students to think about this stuff. I wish I had been equipped with awareness of the nature and elements of human perception when I was 18 years old.

Fisher basically explains his theory that perception is experiential, selective, inferential, inaccurate, and evaluative. In other words, our interpretations of what we sense in the world are influenced by our past experiences, our selective filtering of a limited amount of sensory information, our inferences from that selective information, and our evaluations of that information as important or not important, or positive or negative. As a result, we have to accept that, to some extent, our perceptions of the world are incomplete and inaccurate.

Fisher also explains that our perceptions are influenced by not only 1) senses and our interpretations of them, but our 2) expectations, 3) the figure/ground effect (what we see or are led to see as important), 4) comparisons of our interpretations with others, and 5) the context that we are in. All of these points seem reasonable to me.

The limited nature of perception and the various elements that influence it are why different people end up with different perceptions regarding the same things, whether it is fashion or politics. It is good to be aware of this the next time you wonder why your boyfriend or girlfriend seems so insensitive.

Critically speaking, is Fisher's explanation enough? Has he left anything out (intentionally or unintentionally)? I think one point that Fisher has NOT explained is the effect of genetic differences on perception. One question I would ask him would be "In addition to experiences, how much effect does one's DNA have on the personal differences have on how we perceive something?" For example, some people may not like this question, but do men and women perceive the world differently due to physical differences? Or do certain elements of brain chemistry or genetic elements of personality (if such things exist) influence how we see things. Just wondering.

One related topic to perception that we haven't talked about is "perceptions of beauty". What do you see as beautiful? Where do your perceptions of beauty come from? Are certain definitions of "beautiful" harmful or undesirable?

The following YouTube video makes us think about this. This might be an essay topic to consider.