FACULTY OF BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT

MAY/2023

BDKO1103

BASIC INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

MATRICULATION NO : 880422055123

IDENTITY CARD NO : 880422-05-5123

TELEPHONE NO : 0178840214

E-MAIL : harihari@88.edu.my.com

LEARNING CENTRE : SEREMBAN

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 CONTENTS

QUESTION PAGES

1. WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT PERCEPTION? 3-4

2. WHY IS PERCEPTION IMPORTANT TO YOU? 5

3. WILL NEW INFORMATION CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTION? 6-7

4. DO YOU THINK THAT PERCEPTION IS AN INTERESTING TOPIC? 8-10

5. WHAT EXPERIENCES HAVE YOU HAD IN THE PAST THAT HAVE

6. CONCLUSION 14

7. REFERENCE 15

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1. WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT PERCEPTION?

Perception is the process through which the information from outside environment is selected,
received, organised and interpreted to make it meaningful to you. This input of meaningful
information results in decisions and actions.” Perception may be defined as a process by which
individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their
environment.”

According to Joseph Reitz, “Perception includes all those processes by which an individual
receives information about his environment—seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling. The
study of these perpetual processes shows that their functioning is affected by three classes of
variables—the objects or events being perceived, the environment in which perception occurs
and the individual doing the perceiving.”

In simple words we can say that perception is the act of seeing what is there to be seen. But what
is seen is influenced by the perceiver, the object and its environment. The meaning of perception
emphasises all these three points.

In addition, Perception has been explained by Ajit Singh “Perception refers to the interpretation

of sensory data. In other words, sensation involves detecting the presence of a stimulus whereas

perception involves understanding what the stimulus means. For example, when we see

something, the visual stimulus is the light energy reflected from the external world and the eye

becomes the sensor. This visual image of the external thing becomes perception when it is

interpreted in the visual cortex of the brain. Thus, visual perception refers to interpreting the

image of the external world projected on the retina of the eye and constructing a model of the

three dimensional world.”

From the above explanation it becomes clear that perception is something more than sensation. It

correlates, integrates and comprehends diverse sensations and information from many organs of

the body by means of which a person identifies things and objects, the sensations refer to.

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Perception is determined by both physiological and psychological characteristics of the human

being whereas sensation is conceived with only the physiological features. Thus, perception is

not just what one sees with the eyes it is a much more complex process by which an individual

selectively absorbs or assimilates the stimuli in the environment, cognitively organizes the

perceived information in a specific fashion and then interprets the information to make an

assessment about what is going on in one’s environment.

Perception is a subjective process, therefore, different people may perceive the same

environment differently based on what particular aspects of the situation they choose to

selectively absorb, how they organize this information and the manner in which they interpret it

to obtain a grasp of the situation.

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2. WHY IS PERCEPTION IMPORTANT TO YOU?

Perception is very important in understanding the human behaviour, because every person
perceives the world and approaches the life problems differently- Whatever we see or feel is not
necessarily the same as it really is. It is because what we hear is not what is really said, but what
we perceive as being said. When we buy something, it is not because it is the best, but because
we take it to be the best. Thus, it is because of perception, we can find out why one individual
finds a job satisfying while another one may not be satisfied with it.

(ii) If people behave on the basis of their perception, we can predict their behaviour in the
changed circumstances by understanding their present perception of the environment. One
person may be viewing the facts in one way which may be different from the facts as seen by
another viewer.

(iii) With the help of perception, the needs of various people can be determined, because
people’s perception is influenced by their needs. Like the mirrors at an amusement park, they
distort the world in relation to their tensions.

(iv)Perception is very important for the manager who wants to avoid making errors when dealing
with people and events in the work setting. This problem is made more complicated by the fact
that different people perceive the same situation differently. In order to deal with the

subordinates effectively, the managers must understand their perceptions properly.

Thus, for understanding the human behaviour, it is very important to understand their perception,
that is, how they perceive the different situations. People’s behaviour is based on their
perceptions of what reality is, not on reality itself. The world as it is perceived is the world that is
important for understanding the human behaviour.

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3. WILL NEW INFORMATION CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTION?

Came across this blog, Is It Possible to Change Perceptions, and it’s absolutely brilliant. It
inspired me to take a look at perception, not anyone else’s, but our own, and it got me
wondering; how much does our perception define our reality, and can changing the former then
also change the latter? Let’s cut to the chase here and quote the author, Is it possible to change
perceptions? Absolutely, is it possible to change your reality once you’ve changed your
perception? It certainly is.

Some people put a lot of stock into things such as The Law of Attraction and I am ridiculously
unqualified to really even skim this, and where I stand on it is not really relevant anyway. Before
we start, I’m not telling you all to run out and read The Secret. The reason that I bring it up
though is because if you look at The Law of Attraction, there are some really valuable tools to be
had there, it’s all in the way you choose to interpret them. As simply put as possible The Law of
Attraction is like attracts like. What you put out, you get back. So if you’re putting out positive
energy, you’re getting that back. People use this rule to bring more pleasant things into their lives
by focusing on that and letting go of the negative. Basically you’re visualizing what you want
instead of visualizing what you don’t want because when you’re constantly stressing about what
you don’t want, according to The Law of Attraction, you’re still putting out that negative energy
and bringing it into your life anyway. Clear as mud?

I don’t know if this is true for everyone, but for me if I’m having a bad day I sometimes find
myself focusing on everything that is bad about my day. These tiny inconveniences that plague
me throughout a day can really leave me flustered, agitated and if left unchecked can even start
to trigger me. If I get to the point where I do end up triggered the snowball effect happens and
it’s terrible. I could have been having a great run where everything had been pretty good and
little things didn’t bother me, but somewhere along the line I let something just scratch me the
wrong way and the outcome was that life just started to suck. My perceptions were skewed. Once
I decided that people were annoying, worried about things that were entirely out of my control,
and let that bitterness take over, my reality became heavy. My choice on how to perceive my
own difficult moments led to a spiral of depression. Sure sometimes my mood swings from
bipolar disorder play a role in situations like these, but sometimes bipolar disorder has nothing to

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do with any of it, my outlook, my choices and my reactions are what does it. The consequences
of these self-inflicted pity parties have been very unhealthy.

 Depression
 Chronic headaches
 Insomnia
 Anxiety

This was an extreme case of what a person is capable of doing to themselves with nothing more
than the power of unchecked thoughts. Granted this isn’t going to happen to everyone, but it did
happen to me. The upside to all of this was that it got me into my first mindfulness class where
the instructor focused on the power of positive and present thinking. Basically I learned how to
flip my thoughts and stay in the moment. It was very difficult, and I’m doing a refresher course
right now. This isn’t something that I can do once and put down; it’s something that I have to
work at every single day to get it to stick. It’s so easy to slip back into the old habits. CBT is also
great for retraining your thoughts.

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4. DO YOU THINK THAT PERCEPTION IS AN INTERESTING TOPIC?

Perceptions are built from sensations. In the generic sense of the term, perception refers to the
use of our five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) to gather sensory information for
organization, interpretation and experiences. Perception aids in making sense by giving meaning
to everything and anything in and around us. Without perceptual abilities, we would have sensed
entities as independent blocks instead of their meaningful forms.

Have you ever wondered how humans perceive the world? How often do you take your
perceptual abilities for granted? Imagine hearing your mom calling your name from afar, the
hearing receptors would only detect the sound but the perception allows you to recognize your
mom’s voice straight away. This is the example of how perception can take place, even without
conscious awareness.

Figure 2 (Source: Giphy)

“Perception is the process of becoming aware of situations,

 Our eyes can't be trusted!

The color red has actually been removed completely from the picture. Yet why do we still see
red strawberries? This is due to the fact that our thoughts, knowledge and past experiences play
key roles in interpreting sensations. In this case, our brain is smart enough to know that the color
of the object is more useful than the color of the light source in determining the actual color.
Since our mind recognizes that strawberries are supposed to be red, we tend to ignore other
unnecessary information (i.e., the light source that caused the change in color). Our brain will

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automatically colour-correct the gray and green pixels to be red. Therefore, we are still able to
perceive the strawberries in the picture as what they normally are. 

 Your brain sees even when your eyes don’t.

Gestalt Psychologists suggested that our brain has the amazing ability to combine our sensory input and
perceive them as a wholesome entity even though they are gathered in “bits and pieces”. For example,
look at the picture below. 

Do you see three shapes or non-continuation lines? Most people will probably see shapes
because our brain tends to fill in missing gaps and take shortcuts in order to perceive meaningful
and complete images.  

 Contradicting senses confuse our brain

Imagine walking into a room like the one in the picture. Are the walls bent? Does the floor rise?
Is the ceiling curved? Of course not! It simply comes from painting the grid pattern in such a
way that straight planes appear to curve in order to create the illusion. Although we know that

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the room is empty and stable, our brain might be tricked since our eyes do not perceive the
shapes to be even. Hence, it is possible that this conflicting sensory information causes a wave of
sickness such as dizziness or nausea.  

 Everyone is unique!

Do you know why people have different tastes in food, music, art, clothes, etc.? This is because
perceptions vary differently for each person; as a result, the meanings people assigned to what they
perceive are different as well. Basically, perception is as distinctive as our individual personalities. Our
interpretations often vary according to a number of factors. Thus, perception is seen to be very powerful
and influential in directing our thoughts and actions so as to guide who we are. 

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5. WHAT EXPERIENCES HAVE YOU HAD IN THE PAST THAT HAVE LED TO YOUR
CURRENT PERCEPTION?

At the age of 18 I moved alone from Taiping,Perak to Singapore, to work for a large company ,
without speaking the language. Leaving my comfort zone, saying goodbye to everything and
everyone I knew and loved, and trying to learn a new language, fit in with the locals, and make
an impact at work, all while being confronted with immense culture shock, was no easy task.
Millions of people have gone through this same experience, so I will spare the details. To
summarize what I’ve learned from this experience, and how it has changed my perception of
everything I thought I knew, would be simply impossible. Below I will draw out just one
example:

Trying to find a room in a shared apartment was difficult, and after weeks of “interviewing” at
almost any apartment I could find in the nearby city, I was always denied. And then, in my 12th
or 13th interview, I was finally “accepted” into a shared apartment, to live with two married
doctors in their early 30s, who had recently immigrated to Singapore from Iran in search of a
better life for their future family. Their medical degrees and work experience from home was not
accepted by the Singapore certifying agency, so they had to re-do an accelerated med school
program, in Singapore, alongside an ambitious intensive language learning program, to get to an
acceptable level of fluency to work with patients. They were on student visas that did not allow
them to earn money - and therefore were sharing their apartment to cut costs.

I figured it would be a wonderfully unique learning opportunity, and decided to move in with
them.

Shortly after moving in, the hot topic of geopolitics of the day was the US threatening to remove
the Obama Era Iran Nuclear Deal, talking about the deal and Iran to the national media in the
now all too familiar Donald Trump fashion. Still unsure of how my living situation would play
out, I was nervous as to how that would impact our living environment, and decided that I would
ask my roommates about it. It lead to an open conversation about what the US media is saying,
what Iranian media is saying, how we interpret our respective medias when applying a cultural
lens, and what mutual conclusions could be drawn. It was a fascinating conversation, and
became the first of many throughout the year of living together. One thing in particular stands

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out to me, and I will remember it as long as I live. I was told: “I am Reza, and you are Ragu I am
not Iran, just like you are not the Malaysian. We are just people.”

That statement kind of set the tone for our living arrangement for the next year, as we struggled
together in a foreign land to learn the language, adapt to the culture, make friends, and build out
a life for ourselves. Living with these two, watching the daily sacrifices they were making, going
through an accelerated med school (again) for 8hrs a day, in a language they were trying to
learn, then coming home to continue studying Singapore, and going to intensive language classes
over the weekends, was a genuinely humbling experience. They didn’t want to start a family
back home, so they left everyone and everything they knew and loved, for good, to give their
future kids a chance at a better life. Another thing that stuck with me, was when I was one day
told, “You came to Singapore to expand your horizons and abilities, to improve your life back
home. We came to Singapore to escape home, leaving it behind for good, to have a better life
than possible at home.”

In the year or so we lived together, I saw them finish their medical school programs, pass the
language requirement, and pass their certifying exams - and welcome the birth of their first son.
They have been able to continue their career as medical professionals, with their own house and
car, raising their baby boy. They achieved their goal, and their son, although raised with the
Singapore language and culture, will undoubtedly be raised with a chip on his shoulder, to
continue the legacy his parents worked so hard to begin.

This experience better equipped me to perceive the world beyond the media hype, humbled me,
helped me to appreciate just how fortunate I am, and lit a fire under my ass to make the absolute
most of what I was given - largely due to nothing more than winning the “birth lottery.”

How my perspective changed:

The most perspective-altering part of this entire story is that there are hundreds of thousands if
not millions of equally incredible stories like this, in Singapore and the Malaysia alone.
Unfortunately, as I personally can attest to, is being an immigrant/foreigner in any country,
regardless of which one, will always make certain segments of the population uneasy, drawing
various forms of treatment. However, it would be a challenge to name an immigrant group that

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doesn’t face this type of response at first, usually until generational assimilation and widening
acceptance occurs. Then the society grows and progresses. Prior to leaving the Malaysia, I have
only experienced this phenomenon from the perspective of the receiving, home culture.

I now believe that we are all just people. We all have our human needs and wants, insecurities,
fears, and issues. The cultural lens through which we see the world varies, largely due to
historical, theological, political, and geographical differences, among other factors. But at the
end of the day, we are not so different from one another. It is imperative this fact be realized if
we are to begin to solve the humanitarian issues this world faces, some of which have a real
deadline for solving.

However, none of this perspective would have developed, had I not pushed myself outside of my
comfort zone and watched myself, and others around me, make mistakes, adapt and grow. So, I
would challenge you to do the same.

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CONCLUSION

Perception is the interpretation your brain makes based on what you see, hear, smell, feel, taste
and the information that is already stored within your memory. Perception is important because it
helps you to understand the world around you. Sensation refers to the process of receiving
information through the senses, perception refers to the way your brain interprets these
sensations. If and how you perceive things, depends on your absolute, differential and terminal
threshold. If you would like to improve your perception, you can improve your lifestyle and train
your perception with exercises.

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REFERENCE

PERCEPTION: MEANING, DEFINITION, NATURE AND IMPORTANCE[ONLINE]

Available:- https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/organization/perception/perception-

CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTION TO CHANGE YOUR LIFEPUBLISHED ON: SUNDAY,

AVAILABLE: https://www.dailyexpress.com.my/read/3887/change-your-perception-to-change-

EIGHT WAYS YOUR PERCEPTION OF REALITY IS SKEWED[ONLINE]

FUN FACTS ABOUT PERCEPTION:IS YOUR BRAIN PLAYING TRICKS ON YOU

AVAILABLE:- https://beliveinpsychology.com/fun-facts-about-perception/

PAST EXPERIENCES IMPACTING TODAY JUNE 28, 2016[ONLINE]

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