Past Experience and Interpretition
The part played by prior experience in perceiving things is nicely demonstrated when a person localizes sounds. When you hear a sound, you try to locate it some place "out there." We are so used to doing this that anything which interferes with it upsets our localizing ability. Such an upset was experimentally studied by a psychologist who had people wear a device called a "pseudophone.", The pseudophone consists of a pair of ear trumpets so arranged that each receiving trumpet carries sound to the opposite side of the head. Wearing this instrument was at first disturbing, since there was a reversal of sounds, right and left. If the person was spoken to at the dinner table by someone at his right, he would turn to the left in answering. On the street the wearer of the pseudophone would often bump into people, because upon hearing their approach, he would move in the wrong direction. In time the subjects learned to get used to the new locations and made appropriate responses. The experiment is an interesting example of the effect of past experience on perception.
Interpretations
Suppose that a man wearing a white shirt is standing in bright light holding a piece of coal. By physical measurements it could be easily shown that the amount of light reflected from the shirt is many times greater than that reflected from the coal. Now if the man goes into a shadowed area or a dimly illuminated cellar and physical measurements are again made, the amount of light reflected from shirt i coal would be proportionately the same. But a comparative measul of the total amount of reflected light in sunlight and shadow waul show actually more light is coming from the coal in the sunlight than from the shirt in the cellar. Yet under all conditions of illumination the coal looks black and the shirt looks white. We have learned the color properties from past experience, and this experience detmines our perceptions, despite the physics of the situation. This discrep between perception and physics also occurs when, from past ex ence, you know the color of a dress or the upholstering of a pi furniture. These familiar objects "keep their color," regardless conditions of illumination.
The ability to see objects in depth or at a distanc provi number of illustratIons of the effect of past experience on percept From experience we know that objects near us are seen in clearer detail than faraway objects; hence vagueness in detail means d or distance from the observer. If you live in an industrial section of country where there are smoke and fog, try sometimee to guess distances in a part of the country where the atmosphere is clear; you will find that your estimates are quite inaccurate. From experien know the approximate size of a man and also that a man looks smaller the farther away he is from the observer; hence, knowing the size of objects, we perceive them at various distances from us, depending how big they appear.
The way one is reared in a particular culture often show past experience influences perception. For example, a loud belch the mouth of a dinner guest in some places of the Orient is perceived as a compliment by his host. It goes without saying that an American without knowledge of Oriental customs would perceive this behavior quite differently. Another example is the case of a group of African visitors in London who perceived the London bobbies as especi friendly because they raised their right hand, palm forward approaching traffic. Instead of perceiving this behavior as a sign stopping traffic, the Africans perceived it in terms of what this geasture meant in their own country.
To ignore a person's past experience is to ignore a major determl nant of perception. The world is perceived in terms of expcrienc formerly associated with it. Keep this in mind and you will stop making the common, and incorrect, assumption that everyone perceives the world in the same way.
