Perception Many may ask: “What is Perception?” Perception is the process of assigning meaning to sensory information and experiences. (9., Friedman M. 1978, The Handbook of Perception: New York Academic Press.) For many in today’s society perception is something used on a daily basis to help better understand the environment. Also, perception helps an individual to better understand those around them and the uniqueness that it plays in an individual's life. However, it can and often is more strongly influenced by one on one communication with that individual. Many times, perceptions are influenced by past- experiences, self-concept, one's physical and mental abilities, or one's unique personalities, but first and foremost one's social environment, all combined together helps to determine not only who they are ,but how they perceive others and events in today’s society. Most individuals already have a preconceived perception of themselves and others in their social environment, before they are even given the opportunity to truly find out who and what their lives are all about.
In this paper, first I hope to be able to show how perception works, by by using the analysis of three observers, declared what their perception was of a simple photograph shown to them.( I included above the photograph that was shown to the three observers to help you have a better insight as to what the three observers saw.) Secondly, I plan to show how our self-concept of others, along with our past experience and physical abilities, will help to determine how and why we perceive others the way we do, accoding to events in the world. So many times, perception is influenced by our own physical factors, and our personality as well as our culture. In this paper, through selection, interpretation and organization I hope to show how I used a three step process of Perception. Secondly, I plan to show how I used a simple picture of a man along 3 observers and their backgrounds, to show how they use perception to view the world and events in today’s society. Lastly, I plan to delve deeper in showing how the three observers backgrounds played a big part of how they viewed the photograph they were shown.

In using the three step process discussed above the first step I want to look at is called:
Selection – Selection occurs when we focus on sensory stimuli rather than others (Carferette and Friedman 1978.) Many times I find myself trying to perceive something or someone, before I have even been given the chance to meet or get to know this individual. At times I seem to have a preconceived opinion of someone even when I many not know at all what is going on in their life or environment. I as well as many others, seem to focus more on what is going on around us, like the color of the grass, the sky, the trees, the park, trash cans, or whatever it might be, in helping us to perceive our perception of something, before we are even allowed an explanation of the event going on.
The second step we will be looking at in the three step process is called:
Organization – Organizational perceptions is the tendency to maintain the same perception of people and events over time. I deal with organizational perceptions it seems like on a daily basics. I feel or perceive that people judge me, because of some of the people I hang with in my circle of friends. For example, I feel like at times I am being judged or perceived as a lesbian because I have a lot of gay and lesbian friends, and because I choice not to date a lot. I choice not to date a lot, for the one man reason I don’t have the time to, and I haven’t found the right man to date. Our perception of people and events over time, can be very upsetting and damaging to oneself, just by our perception of how we may see them and their friends. I think over time and our perception of people and events we have become a very judgmental society. I also plan to use organization to help me learn to