Module 2 perception and learning

MODULE -2
PERCEPTION AND LEARNING
HBO Bba sem 2
By Prof. Pankhuri jain

Perception
 Perception may be defined as the process with which
individuals detect and interpret environmental stimuli.
 A perception is a belief held by a person, or many
people, based upon how they see the world around them.
 It is the process of selecting, organising and interpreting
information in order to make sense of the world around
us.
 Nature of perception
(1) Perception is the intellectual process.
(2) Perception is the basic cognitive or psychological process.
(3) Perception becomes a subjective process and different people
may perceive the same event differently.

Perception and sensation
 There is a distinction between sensation and perception.
Sensation is the response of a physical sensory organ.The
physical senses are vision, hearing, tough, smell and taste.These
senses are bombarded by stimuli and reactions in particular
sense organ take place because of these, e.g., of sensation may
be reaction of eye to color, ear to sound and so on. Sensation
precedes perception. Perception is much more than sensation.
Perception depends upon the sensory raw data.The perceptual
process adds to or/and subtracts from the sensory world.
Perception is determined by both physiological and psychological
characteristics, of the organism. However, sensation only
activates the organs of the body and is not affected by such
psychological factors as learning and motives. Activation of eyes
to see an object is sensation and the inference what is being seen
is perception. For managerial action, it is the latter which is
important.

Process of Perception
 The perceptual process is a sequence of steps that begins with stimuli in
the environment and ends with our interpretation of those stimuli.This
process is typically unconscious and happens hundreds of thousands of
times a day. An unconscious process is simply one that happens without
awareness or intention. Following are the steps of perception :
 Perceptual inputs – receiving of stimuli and picking up all external and
internal factors.
 Selecting Stimuli – Selecting the stimuli which will be most important –
This is where the introduction of new employees is important, they need
to be presented in a way where the selected stimuli are positive.
 Organising – Grouping and selecting which are the perceptions to keep.
 Interpreting – FundamentalAttribution Error, stereotyping, Halo Effect
and projection.
 Perceptual output – Interpretation is turned into perception.
 Individual behaviour –The perception is then turned into attitudes,
motivation, feelings and beliefs, which will change the behaviours of the
individuals.

Stages of process:
1. Perceptual input or receiving stimuli -The first process in the
perception is the presence of stimuli.The stimuli are received from the
various sources.Through the five organs. It is a physiological aspect of
perception process. Stimuli may be external to us (such as sound
waves) and inside us (such as energy generation by muscles).
2. Selection of Stimuli : After receiving the stimuli or data, some are
selected. Others are screened out.Two types of factors affect selection
of stimuli for processing : external and internal factors. External factors
relate to stimuli such as intensity of stimuli, its size, movement,
repetition, etc. Internal factors, relate to the perceiver such as his/her
age, learning, interest, etc. Normally, he will select the objects which
interest him and will avoid that for which he is indifferent.This is also
called 'selective perception'.
3. Organization of Stimuli : Organising the bits of information into a
meaningful whole is called "organization".There are three ways by
which the selected data, i.e., inputs are organised.These are :

Stages…
(i) Grouping, (ii) Closure and (iii) Simplification.
4. Interpretation : After we have attended to a stimulus, and our brains
have received and organized the information, we interpret it in a way
that makes sense using our existing information about the world.
Interpretation simply means that we take the information that we
have sensed and organized and turn it into something that we can
categorize. This happens unconsciously thousands of times a day. By
putting different stimuli into categories, we can better understand and
react to the world around us.
5. Perceptual output: Based on perceptual mechanism which ends with
interpretation of stimuli, perceptual outputs emerge.These outputs
may be in the form of covert actions development of attitudes,
opinions, beliefs, impression about the stimuli under consideration.
These outputs along with other factors affecting human behavior may
result in overt behavior. For overt behavior to occur, perception is not
the sole decider though it is important.

Factors influencing
perception
 Factors of Perceiver:
1. Size : Bigger size attracts the attention of the perceiver
2. Intensity : A loud sound, strong odor or bright light is noticed more
as compared to a soft sound, weak odour or dimlight.
3. Repetition : A repeated external stimulus is more attention getting
than a single one.Advertisers use this principle.
4. Novelty and Familiarity : A novel or a familiar external situation can
serve as attention getter.
5. Contrast : It is a kind of uniqueness which can be used for attention
getting. Letters of bold types, persons dressed differently than
others, etc., get more attention.
6. Motion : A moving object draws more attention as compared to a
stationary object. Advertisers use this principle.

Factors of target
1. Needs and Motives: Unsatisfied needs or motives stimulate individuals
and may exert a strong influence on their perception.
2. Self Concept: It refers how a person perceives himself/herself which in
turn influence his or her perception of the world around them. If a
person perceives himself as incompetent, then he perceives the world
as threatening. On the other hand, if he feels himself as confident and
capable, he will perceive everything around as friendly.
3. Attitudes: The preferences and likingness affects ones perception. A
lecturer, who likes bigger class, feels comfortable in a lecture session
which has more than hundred students.Another lecturer, who likes
small class with a lot of questions, may not be so comfortable in such
big classes.
4. Interests: Individual’s focus of attention is also influenced by the
interests of people. A plastic surgeon will more likely to notice an
imperfect nose than a plumber. Because of our individual interests
differ considerably, what one person notices in a situation, can differ
from what other person perceives.

Factors of target
5. Past experiences: Individuals past experiences also influence in
molding ones perception. For example if one has had problem
responding to examination questions in the past, he or she will tend to
perceive even simple, straightforward examination question as tricky.
6. Psychological or Emotional State: If an individual is depressed, he or
she is likely to perceive the same situation differently from the other
person who is at the extreme level of excitement or happiness. If a
person has been scared of seeing a snake in the garden, she is likely to
perceive a rope under the bed as a snake.Thus, the emotional and
psychological states of an individual also influence the perceptual
process and the different types of interpretation of the situation.
7. Expectation: Expectations can also distort the perceptual process. If a
person expects police officers to be more authoritative and dictatorial,
he or she may perceive them as if they are rough and tough regardless
of the Police Officers actual traits.

Factors of target
8. New Experience: If a person experiences
something new, that is more likely to grab
attention than the objects or events that has
been experienced before.
9. Personality Characteristics: There is a strong
relationship between personality factors and
perception. For example, secure people tend to
perceive others as warm supportive than those,
who are more cold and indifferent. Similarly,
self-accepting persons perceive others as lining
and accepting them.

Factors of the Situation:
 The context at which the incident is occurring can
influence the perceptual process.The physical,
social, organizational settings, time etc can influence
how we interpret the stimuli. For example, late
coming of subordinate at birthday party may be
ignored but treated him as an important guests by
the manager, but at same time, the same person’s
late coming to an important official meeting will be
viewed as seriously and manager may issue a memo
seeking his explanation.Thus, the location of an
event, the social context in which takes place, timing
and the roles played by the actors play a significant
part in how we interpret the situation.

Barriers to perceptual
accuracy
1. Selective Perception - Selective perception is the process
by which individuals perceive what they want to in media
messages while ignoring opposing viewpoints. It is a broad
term to identify the behavior all people exhibit to tend to
"see things" based on their particular frame of reference. It
also describes how we categorize and interpret sensory
information in a way that favors one category or
interpretation over another. In other words, selective
perception is a form of bias because we interpret
information in a way that is congruent with our existing
values and beliefs. Psychologists believe this process
occurs automatically. It is to single out certain aspects of
the environment due to defense mechanism and other
human limitations.

Barriers..
3. Halo effect - In this type of error, an individual is perceived based on a
single trait. In other words, a single trait may cast its influence on all
other traits. For example, a person may have done some good work,
some time ago which was highly appreciated by his boss.This deed by
the individual might have touched the boss to such an extent that all
other qualities, be it negative, get overshadowed by just one good
deed of the individual. Such an error often finds its way in
the performance appraisal exercise wherein the rater tends to rate an
individual very high or very low based on a single trait, thus permitting
a high degree of bias to creep into the appraisal.
4. Perceptual Set- A perceptual set means previously held beliefs about
an object’s influence on individual perception of similar objects. For
example, a manager may have developed the general belief and
attitude that workers are lazy and shirkers and that they want to gain
whatever is possible from the organisation without giving their best to
it. His subsequent perception will be influenced by this set when he
meets a group of workers.The manager tends to interpret the
behaviour of the workers according to his mental set.

Barriers…
4. Stereotyping- Stereotyping means judging someone on the
basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person
belongs.This is a basic human tendency to perceive an
individual as belonging to a single class or category and hence,
attributing favourable or unfavorable characteristics to the
individual based upon a widely held generalization about the
group. Some examples of common stereo types are that
Americans are materialistic, Japanese are nationalistic and
Germans are industrious.
5. Projection- It is easy to judge others if we assume that they are
similar to us.When one’s own personal attributes are assigned
to others, then projection takes place. A manager who loves
challenging work may assume that all others like challenging
work too. If you yourself are honest and trustworthy you take it
for granted that other people are equally honest and
trustworthy.

Attribution
 Your colleague Peter failed to meet the deadline.What do
you do? Do you help him finish up his work? Do you give
him the benefit of the doubt and place the blame on the
difficulty of the project? Or do you think that he is
irresponsible? Our behavior is a function of our perceptions.
More specifically, when we observe others behave in a
certain way, we ask ourselves a fundamental question:
Why?Why did he fail to meet the deadline?Why did Mary
get the promotion?Why did Mark help you when you
needed help?The answer we give is the key to
understanding our subsequent behavior. If you believe that
Mark helped you because he is a nice person, your action
will be different from your response if you think that Mark
helped you because your boss pressured him to.

Attribution continued..
 An attribution is the causal explanation we give
for an observed behavior. If you believe that a
behavior is due to the internal characteristics of
an actor, you are making an internal attribution.
For example, let’s say your classmate Erin
complained a lot when completing a finance
assignment. If you think that she complained
because she is a negative person, you are making
an internal attribution. An external attribution is
explaining someone’s behavior by referring to
the situation. If you believe that Erin complained
because finance homework was difficult, you are
making an external attribution.

Errors of attribution
 Fundamental attribution error - It is our tendency to explain someone's
behavior based on internal factors, such as personality or disposition,
and to underestimate the influence that external factors, such as
situational influences, have on another person's behavior.We might, for
example, explain the fact that someone is unemployed based on his
character, and blame him for his plight, when in fact he was recently laid
off due to a sluggish economy. Of course, there are times when we're
correct about our assumptions, but the fundamental attribution error is
our tendency to explain the behavior of others based on character or
disposition.This is particularly true when the behavior is negative.
 Self serving bias – It is common human tendency to attribute one’s
successes to personal characteristics, and one’s failures to factors
beyond one’s control.The reason people tend to personalize success is
because it helps their self-esteem levels. Most people demonstrate this
behavior on a regular basis. It is human nature to take credit for things
like an A on a test or a job well done at work. It is also human nature to
avoid responsibility entirely for mistakes or problems.

learning
 Learning can be defined as the permanent change in
behavior due to direct and indirect experience. It means
change in behavior, attitude due to education and training,
practice and experience. It is completed by acquisition of
knowledge and skills, which are relatively permanent.
 Learning involves change;
 it may or may not guarantee improvement.
 It should be permanent in nature, that is learning is for
lifelong.
 The change in behavior is the result of experience, practice
and training.
 Learning is reflected through behavior.

Classical conditioning
theory
 Classical conditioning theory involves learning a new
behavior via the process of association. In simple terms,
two stimuli are linked together to produce a newly learned
response in a person or animal.There are three stages of
classical conditioning. At each stage the stimuli and
responses are given special scientific terms:
 Stage 1: Before Conditioning: In this stage,
the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) produces
an unconditioned response (UCR) in an organism. In basic
terms, this means that a stimulus in the environment has
produced a behavior / response which is unlearned (i.e.,
unconditioned) and therefore is a natural response which
has not been taught. In this respect, no new behavior has
been learned yet.

Classical conditioning…
This stage also involves another stimulus which has no effect
on a person and is called the neutral stimulus (NS).The NS
could be a person, object, place, etc.The neutral stimulus in
classical conditioning does not produce a response until it is
paired with the unconditioned stimulus.
 Stage 2: During Conditioning: During this stage a stimulus
which produces no response (i.e., neutral) is associated
with the unconditioned stimulus at which point it now
becomes known as the conditioned stimulus (CS). Often
during this stage, the UCS must be associated with the CS
on a number of occasions, or trials, for learning to take
place. However, one trail learning can happen on certain
occasions when it is not necessary for an association to be
strengthened over time (such as being sick after food
poisoning or drinking too much alcohol).

Continue…
 Stage 3: After
Conditioning: Now the
conditioned stimulus
(CS) has been
associated with the
unconditioned stimulus
(UCS) to create a new
conditioned response
(CR).

Pavlov’s experiment
 Pavlov paired the meat powder with various stimuli such as the ringing of a
bell. After the meat powder and bell (auditory stimulus) were presented
together several times, the bell was used alone. Pavlov’s dogs, as predicted,
responded by salivating to the sound of the bell (without the food).The bell
began as a neutral stimulus (i.e. the bell itself did not produce the dogs’
salivation). However, by pairing the bell with the stimulus that did produce
the salivation response, the bell was able to acquire the ability to trigger the
salivation response. Pavlov therefore demonstrated how stimulus-response
bonds (which some consider as the basic building blocks of learning) are
formed. He dedicated much of the rest of his career further exploring this
finding.
Process of conditioning
The entire process of conditioning can be explained like this:
Food——————-Salivation
Bell—-Food————-Salivation
REPEAT
Bell———————Salivation

Continue…
THIS ASSOCIATION IS CONDITIONING
In technical terms, the meat powder is considered an
unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the dog’s salivation is
the unconditioned response (UCR).The bell is a neutral
stimulus until the dog learns to associate the bell with food.
Then the bell becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) which
produces the conditioned response (CR) of salivation after
repeated pairings between the bell and food.
UCS—————- UCR
CS—UCS————-UCR
REPEAT
CS——————UCR

Operant conditioning
 Operant conditioning can be described as a process that attempts to modify
behavior through the use of positive and negative reinforcement.Through
operant conditioning, an individual makes an association between a particular
behavior and a consequence (Skinner, 1938).The work of Skinner was rooted in a
view that classical conditioning was far too simplistic to be a complete
explanation of complex human behavior. He believed that the best way to
understand behavior is to look at the causes of an action and its consequences.
He called this approach operant conditioning. Through operant conditioning, an
individual makes an association between a particular behavior and a
consequence.
 Example 1: Parents rewarding a child’s excellent grades with candy or some
other prize.
 Example 2: A schoolteacher awards points to those students who are the most
calm and well-behaved. Students eventually realize that when they voluntarily
become quieter and better behaved, that they earn more points.
 Example 3: A form of reinforcement (such as food) is given to an animal every
time the animal (for example, a hungry lion) presses a lever.

Reinforcement
 Positive Reinforcement : Skinner showed how positive
reinforcement worked by placing a hungry rat in his Skinner
box.The box contained a lever on the side, and as the rat
moved about the box, it would accidentally knock the lever.
Immediately it did so a food pellet would drop into a
container next to the lever.The rats quickly learned to go
straight to the lever after a few times of being put in the
box.The consequence of receiving food if they pressed the
lever ensured that they would repeat the action again and
again.
Positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior by
providing a consequence an individual finds
rewarding. Positive reinforcers are favorable events or
outcomes that are given to the individual after the

Reinforcement
 Negative Reinforcement :The removal of an unpleasant
reinforcer can also strengthen behavior.This is known as
negative reinforcement because it is the removal of an
adverse stimulus which is ‘rewarding’ to the animal or
person. Negative reinforcement strengthens behavior
because it stops or removes an unpleasant experience . For
example, if you do not complete your homework, you give
your teacher Rs.5.You will complete your homework to
avoid paying Rs.5, thus strengthening the behavior of
completing your homework. Negative reinforcers typically
are characterized by the removal of an undesired or
unpleasant outcome after the desired behavior. A
response is strengthened as something considered
negative is removed.

Punishment
Punishment, in contrast, is when the increase of
something undesirable attempts to cause a
decrease in the behavior that follows.
Positive punishment is when unfavorable events or
outcomes are given in order to weaken the
response that follows.
Negative punishment is characterized by when an
favorable event or outcome is removed after a
undesired behavior occurs.
The goal in both of these cases of punishment is for
a behavior to decrease.

Reinforcement schedules
 A schedule of reinforcement is basically a rule
stating which instances of a behavior will be
reinforced. In some cases, a behavior might be
reinforced every time it occurs . Sometimes, a
behavior might not be reinforced at all .
Either positive reinforcement or negative
reinforcement might be used, depending on the
situation. In both cases, the goal of reinforcement is
always to strengthen the behavior and increase the
likelihood that it will occur again in the future.
Certain schedules of reinforcement may be more
effective in specific situations.There are two types of
reinforcement schedules:

1. Continuous Reinforcement
Schedules
 In continuous reinforcement, the desired behavior is
reinforced every single time it occurs.This schedule is best
used during the initial stages of learning in order to create a
strong association between the behavior and the response.
 For example, imagine that you are trying to teach a dog to
shake your hand. During the initial stages of learning, you
would probably stick to a continuous reinforcement
schedule in order to teach and establish the behavior.You
might start by grabbing the animal's paw, performing the
shaking motion, saying "Shake," and then offering a reward
each and every time you perform this sequence of steps.
Eventually, the dog will start to perform the action on his
own, and you might opt to continue reinforcing every single
correct response until the behavior is well established.

2. Partial Reinforcement
Schedules
 Once the response if firmly attached, reinforcement is
usually switched to a partial reinforcement schedule.
 In partial or intermittent reinforcement, the response is
reinforced only part of the time. Learned behaviors are
acquired more slowly with partial reinforcement, but the
response is more resistant to extinction.
 For example, think of our earlier example where you were
training a dog to shake.While you initially used a
continuous schedule, reinforcing every single instance of
the behavior may not always be realistic. Eventually, you
might decide to switch to a partial schedule where you
provide reinforcement after so many responses occur or
after so much time has elapsed.

There are four schedules of
partial reinforcement:
 Fixed-ratio schedules are those where a response is
reinforced only after a specified number of responses.This
schedule produces a high, steady rate of responding with
only a brief pause after the delivery of the reinforcer. An
example of a fixed-ratio schedule would be delivering a
food pellet to a rat after it presses a bar five times.
 Variable-ratio schedules occur when a response is
reinforced after an unpredictable number of responses.This
schedule creates a high steady rate of responding.
Gambling and lottery games are good examples of a
reward based on a variable ratio schedule. In a lab setting,
this might involve delivering food pellets to a rat after one
bar press, again after four bar presses, and a third pellet
after two bar presses.

…
 Fixed-interval schedules are those where the first response is
rewarded only after a specified amount of time has elapsed.This
schedule causes high amounts of responding near the end of the
interval, but much slower responding immediately after the
delivery of the reinforcer.An example of this in a lab setting
would be reinforcing a rat with a lab pellet for the first bar press
after a 30-second interval has elapsed.
 Variable-interval schedules occur when a response is rewarded
after an unpredictable amount of time has passed.This schedule
produces a slow, steady rate of response. An example of this
would be delivering a food pellet to a rat after the first bar press
following a one-minute interval, another pellet for the first
response following a five-minute interval, and a third food pellet
for the first response following a three-minute interval.

Social learning theory
 In social learning theory, Albert Bandura (1977) agrees with the
behaviorist learning theories of classical conditioning and operant
conditioning. However, he adds two important ideas:
 Mediating processes occur between stimuli & responses.
 Behavior is learned from the environment through the process of
observational learning.
 Bandura’s Social LearningTheory posits that people learn from one
another, via observation, imitation, and modeling.The theory has often
been called a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories
because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation.
 One of Bandura's most famous experiments is the famous bobo doll
experiment. Children observed as adults modeled either violent or
passive behavior towards the doll, and this observation was found to
influence the manner in which the children subsequently interacted with
the dolls.Children who observed violent behavior behaved violently
toward the doll and vice versa.

Bandura’s 4 principles of
social learning theory
 Attention- We cannot learn if we are not focused on the task. If we see
something as being novel or different in some way, we are more likely to
make it the focus of their attention. Social contexts help to reinforce
these perceptions.
 Retention -We learn by internalizing information in our memories.We
recall that information later when we are required to respond to a
situation that is similar the situation within which we first learned the
information.
 Reproduction- We reproduce previously learned information (behavior,
skills, knowledge) when required. However, practice through mental and
physical rehearsal often improves our responses.
 Motivation- We need to be motivated to do anything. Often that
motivation originates from our observation of someone else being
rewarded or punished for something they have done or said.This usually
motivates us later to do, or avoid doing, the same thing.

Module 2 perception and learning

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Module 2 perception and learning