The Main Causes and Implications of Perceptual Distortions And Errors - Coursework Example

Name Task Tutor Date Main causes and implications of perceptual distortions and errors? Perceptual distortions is lack of agreement of things with one another between the way stimulus become aware and the way an individual understand it under given conditions. It can occur at any stage of information; during receiving, retaining or recalling. Brain is an organ that coordinates sensation and intellect, brain is capable of attending one source of information at a time, while the mind is the consciousness, thought the mind processes information from internal and external sources (Green 2009). Internal sources include thoughts and feelings while external sources are senses such as auditory and visual, the mind perceive what is anticipated to see and fail to notice other facts which may be essential in decision making process, the greater the distressing experience the higher the risk of perceptual distortion and memory loss which can be partial, total, temporary or permanent. Memory have three critical components, this include receive, retain, and recall. Information must be received first before it is remembered. Attention help us to determines what we will receive, retain, and recall, the brain picks and chooses some things and ignores others because they have an infinite capacity to observe (Green 2009). The difference in perception and processing time can affect the process of decision making and hence the action taken may not be the right one. The causes of perceptual distortions and errors include selectivity, overgeneralization, poor encoding, Intensity of the attitude, Attention, Brain capacity, tension and Inattention blindness, Contrast principle, Halo effects, First impression, Individual Mood, Taboo, values, attitude, Past experiences, personality, projections, motives, Information interpretation, and others .Selectivity is the failure to consider all the evidence in a balanced and neutral point of views (Riva, 2002). This may come in two ways, first is considering only the negative details and magnifying them while filtering out all the positive details of a situation. Secondly is taking the positive details and magnifying them while filtering out all the negative aspects of a situation. Overgeneralization is the arrival at a conclusion based on one incident without considering other incidents, this normally result in inaccurate judgments. Poor encoding happen at the time of initial perception which are either brought by poor visibility or faulty memory. Intensity of the attitude if it is there is the increase or decrease in the intensity of attitude and it will cause perceptual distortion. Attention; if information was not received accurately initially it will cause distortion in perception, some may have selective attention this make a person intently to focus on one element in environment and ignores other element in the environment, attention determine what will be received, retained or recalled (Riva, 2002). When intensity of focus is greater, it will take longer to notice and respond to change. In Brain capacity, the brain is not cable of observing and recalling all things which are happening around every time, brain capacity receive, store information or retained and recalled. Tension is the mental or nervous strain, which is accompanied by muscular tautness. If a person works under tension it will affect our perception and he/she will see things differently not the way we could have seen it. Inattention blindness is the failure that is directly in the line of vision because attention focuses on competing visual input. Contrast principle is the way our senses work depending on how we compare things, if we compare one thing with two different things it will give different results, it is known as principle of perceptual contrast (Weiss 2001). Halo effects occur when one positive qualities of a person or situation is used in developing overall feeling of the situation or individual, this will lead to negative qualities being not considered. First impression causes distortion in perception because first impression has a lasting effect on an individual, what happen later even if it has additional information it may not make any change anything. Individual Mood depends on the mood one has, if it is on good or bad mood, if somebody is on good mood he or she may be able to see most of the things happening around unlike when he or she is on bad mood he may not be keen enough to notice most of the things happening around him (Weiss 2001). In the cause of Taboo, people from different culture have different taboo, hence may interpret similar things differently. Most people accept what is socially acceptable in the society and avoid what they see has a taboo. The Mental set of the subject is a tendency of approaching situation in a certain way because it has worked in the past which is not always true. There may be some additional information which individual fail to consider, things are changing as the time changes. Values are the beliefs that guide people behavior. They are socially or culturally constructed, some people accept only values which are acceptable on their culture or society. Attitude is another cause. Attitude refers to the feelings people have towards certain issues, it dictates how people react in different situations or time (Mullins 2005). Attitude can be either positive or negative. On the issue of Past experiences, the mind stores information in schemas which are built from experience and it shows that we can comprehend and recall situations very well. Motive is any stimulus which is internal or external; it is capable of activating or change behavior. In Personality, individuals have different character because they have different qualities due to these they see or take things differently. Other perceptual distortions include stress; it is as results of chemical reaction taking place in our bodies due to adrenaline and other hormones. Stress interferes with perception, before, during and after an event. It affects what to remember, how to remember, accuracy of brain receiving, retaining and recalling. When the levels of stress are low, the mind maintain attention on most of the things happening around, but as the level of stress increases, the brain narrows focus and then suppresses information that are not important. At the time of high stress, the brain focus and process change from thinking on how to react, mental process increases as a result of repetition and intuitive decision made during stress (Mullins 2005). Fears; when people have a fear on something it affect the functioning of a brain, the brain may not be able recall what has happened early or what is happening around in the present. Contextual cues is the acquiring of information of an event before we encounter it; cues allow people to generalize thing from past experiences to that incident, it lead to inaccurate judgment on an incident. Implications of perceptual distortions and errors include rejecting something that should have been accepted. If such mistake is done on important issues such as business, judgment or security it may bring negative outcome such as losses in business and unfair judgment. In the side of judgment, the accused may be jail on an offense he did not commit; this will lead to lack of confident on judiciary. Another implication is accepting something which should have been rejected, if this mistake is done in business sector it may cause a big loss because capital may be use in projects which are not doing well (Green 2009). Perceptual distortions and errors may lead negotiators to make irrational choices. These are common obstacles to successful resolution of conflict and are readily apparent in mediation cases. This also affect job appraisal, in some organization where a worker work in groups or taskforce on different projects, individuals are judged on the performance of the group and not on their own performance as individual, as a result of this, inefficient by individuals in a successful group get hikes which they did not deserve and efficient workers in an unsuccessful group are left out. This may de-motivate hardworking individuals hence affecting the organization in achieving its objectives and goals but in some occasion it may encourage team work among the members of a group. It denies some people a life time opportunity, for example if a person has a dream of becoming something in his or her life, he may be denied that opportunity based on the past experience that certain groups cannot do it and fail to consider each individual on the group separately. It may lead to some workers not working hard, in organization which have two or more groups performing same duties separately, one group may work hard and complete their duties early while another may sits late and works to complete the same duties. Managers may see those who work till late as hardworking employees and award or promote them using that assumption. This affect the performance of an organization since some organization may be comparing their performance with another company in the same industry which is not doing well (Weiss 2001). This will make them to think that they are doing well because they are better than that company which is performing badly, if a company makes that assumption it may cost the company in the long run. There will be Reduction in investment because some people will fear to start a business or continue investing on existing investment because they do not want to go back to similar situation which happen early without considering the cause of it. In the light of the above discussion, it is apparent that there are no “superhuman” people, both mentally and physical limitations are the same for everybody. The discussion clearly distinct many causes of perceptual errors and distortion which make us possible to understand the reason why people behaviors and perception are different. We have seen that even if they are looking for a similar thing on the same time they may give different perception. People should learn to respect individual perception and try to avoid these distortion and errors because we have seen most consequences have negative result (Morganti and Rivae 2009). Lastly we have also seen that most of the implications brought by perceptual distortion and errors have negative result, these include irrational choices, effect on job appraisal, denial of opportunity, lack of motivation of workers and losses in business. On the other hand we have seen a positive result that it improves team work in a group, if the manager is generalizing what individual has done. We have learn that with the purpose of achieving good decision making, we are required to analysis, synthesis and evaluate the information since perceptual distortions can occur in receiving, retaining or recalling information. Organization should weigh the risks and liability they wish to assume for manager investigators and executive. Agencies must scrutinize their own use-of-force patterns and build up training. Training must take place on a repetitive basis as a result the officers develop a high level of expertise and self-confidence in their performance. In aiding the learning process, the trainee should consider recounting verbally, writing the incident in details and using videotaped in such a manner similar to incident that are likely to occur. Such arrangements will enable the trainees to avail first-hand expertise on the factors influencing perception, memory recall and refining performance. In evaluating performance, it is important to account scientific and practical limitations that governing human performance (Morganti and Rivae 2009). The strict frequency of training will vary based on a grouping of individual personality, prior experience, and job demands. After understanding of the a variety of factors that contribute to errors in perception, mistakes of fact, performance deficits, and inaccurate happening bring to mind necessary to the modern-day law enforcement administrative and should serve up to guide a department in successfully training and fairly evaluating the actions of its personnel. Corrective action strategy in reaction to mistakes and misjudgments made as a consequence of split-second decisions is supposed to put emphasis on retraining and remediation. References: Laurie, Mullins. Management and organisational behavior. 7 Edition. London: illustratedPublisherPrentice Hall/Financial Times. 2005. Print. Joseph W. Weiss. Organizational behavior and change: managing diversity, cross-cultural dynamics, and ethics. Edition2. London: illustratedPublisherSouth-Western College Pub. 2001. Giuseppe, Riva. Virtual reality in neuro-psycho-physiology: cognitive, clinical and methodological issues in assessment and rehabilitation. Perth: OS Press. 1997. Print. Yaacov, Vertzberger. The world in their minds: information processing, cognition, and perception in foreign policy decision making. Stanford: Stanford University Press. print. Giuseppe, Riva (Ph.D.). 1990Say not to say: new perspectives on miscommunication Emerging Communication:Studies in New Technologies and Practices in communiCation, 3. Perth: IOS Press. 2002.print. Francesca, Morganti and Giuseppe, RivaE. Enacting intersubjectivity: a cognitive and social perspective on the study of interactions. Perth: IOS Press. 2008. Marc Green. Human factors. 2009. Errors in Eyewitness Identification Procedures. Web. 15 oct. 2009. Read More