Salience

A crucial aspect of comprehending how and why we pay attention is salience.

The definition of salience is something that draws our attention. With so much

information at our disposal, our minds will selectively choose what information to focus

on and what to disregard. Our specific views will be directly impacted by this.

(Perception Process, 2020 as cited in Atman and Mata, 2020).

Selection

The selection phase occurs first in the perception process. We need to first give

close attention to the senses in order to lay a foundation for possibilities. Our senses—

sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell—are constantly being stimulated. We will decide

what to focus on and when because we can't react to them all. It is known as sensory

selection. The method by which we choose which stimuli to pay attention to. Most of

the time, this happens unconsciously and with no effort on our part. (Knudsen, et

al. 2021 as cited in Atman and Mata, 2020).

Organization

Now that we are aware of how we decide which stimuli to focus on, let's

examine how we arrange that data. Gestalt theory has influenced how we think about

this organizing process. Gestalt is German for "pattern" or "shape," and the theory

claims that humans fundamentally process data by combining external stimuli with

internal processes. (Rock & Palmer, 1990 as cited in Atman and Mata, 2020). In other

words, our internal forces significantly influence how we perceive our surroundings. To
clarify this further, let's examine how we classify stimuli using one of the three most

common factors: Proximity (Coren, 1980 as cited in Atman and Mata, 2020).

Proximity

By "proximity," we mean how we perceive the position of a object in relation to

its surroundings.  while we go about our daily lives, we observe things not in isolation

but rather in relation to its environment. This idea has been highlighted in the figure-

ground connection, which argues that our perception will alter depending on whether

we are focused on the object or the surroundings. (Knudsen, et al., 2021 as cited in

Atman and Mata, 2020)

Primacy Effect

You've probably heard the saying "you never get a second chance to make a first

impression." Primacy effect is the word used by social psychologists to explain the

phenomena where individuals give greater importance to what they see or learn initially

and consider it to be more important than what they learn afterwards. To understand

this further, let’s put the primacy effect into context with a study by (Asch ,1946 as cited

in Atman and Mata, 2020)

(Asch 1946 as cited in Atman and Mata, 2020) conducted an experiment in which he

read out a list of traits and asked participants to describe the individual in general terms.

The identical set of traits was assigned to each participant: intelligence, criticality,

impulsiveness, hardworking, stubbornness, and enviousness. The list of qualities was

nevertheless rearranged in terms of order. Asch's findings led him to the conclusion that
participants were more inclined to judge a person more favorably when the list of

qualities started with the more favorable attributes. On the other hand, when the

undesirable traits were mentioned first, a bad impression was created.

Interpretation

Then, after choosing what to focus on, we group it into a particular pattern or

category and assign it a meaning. This is largely the result of how we perceive things.

Despite the importance of each stage in the process, this last one will function as its

public display. We should also keep in mind that, as we have seen with perceptions so

far, our brain is simply attempting to make sense of the environment we are in. To keep

things simple, we may verify what we already perceive as real (Atman and Mata, 2020)

Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency for us to focus on information that affirms what

we have assumed while ignoring or discrediting information that contradicts the reality

we want to believe in. This might make it difficult for us to perceive things objectively;

instead, we see things through the lens of our own experiences. (Gray, 2010 as cited in

Atman and Mata, 2020).