Wow, Muscles!

by speckledlily in Issues, October 20, 2009

From my article Perception of Beauty, we develop certain expectations about how things should be; these expectations are called perceptual sets.

Perceptual sets are learned expectations that are based on our personal, social, or cultural experiences. These expectations automatically add information, meaning, or feelings to our perceptions and thus change or bias our perceptions.

For example, as you look at this bodybuilder, you automatically add personal feelings, such as like/dislike and approve/disapprove, as well as impressions of physical characteristics: height, about 6 feet, and weight, about 225 pounds. Because of your personal set for bodybuilders, you expect them to be large, and so you will be surprised to learn that this body-builder is only 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 182 pounds. One function of perceptual sets is to automatically fill in information or add feelings that can greatly modify our perceptions.

These examples show that we rarely perceive the world exactly as it is. Rather, our perceptions can be changed, biased, or distorted by experiences, such as cultural influences and perceptual sets.