Perception about life
Eight Ways Your Perception of Reality Is Skewed
Seeing is believing. To some extent, that’s true, of course: Our eyes allow us to see what’s around us, helping us navigate our world.
But it turns out sight is much more complicated than that, according to the new book Perception: How Our Bodies Shape Our Minds, by University of Virginia psychologist Dennis Proffitt and Drake Baer. What we perceive in any given moment is not only determined by sensory input, but by our personal physical abilities, energy levels, feelings, social identities, and more.
“It’s common sense to believe we experience the world as it objectively is,” the authors write. “Even though our naive intuitions are that we see the world as it is, we do not.”
It’s not just our eyesight that’s influenced by unconscious processes, either. Proffitt and Baer’s book is chock full of fascinating research findings that challenge not only the things we perceive, but the judgments and decisions we make based on what we perceive.
Things that seem true and universal are often just our own unique experience of the world.
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This is useful to know—especially now, when we are fighting a deadly pandemic and mired in political and social turmoil. If we understand what irrelevant factors manipulate what we see and think, we can perhaps find ways to overcome these influences and make better decisions as a society.
“If we are going to have a better understanding of ourselves and our fellow human beings, we need to appreciate the startling individuality of everyone’s experience,” write Proffitt and Baer. That means having humility. Here are eight of the many interesting take-home messages from their book.
1. Our energy and abilities impact our perspective
Several studies by Proffitt and others show that our physical bodies and our ability to move influence how we view our surroundings.
For example, researchers have found that if you are obese or tired, distances look farther to you. People wearing heavy backpacks see steeper hills in front of them than those without backpacks.
“Put another way: Our walking ability shapes the apparent walkability of the hill, which determines how we see it. You do not see the hill as it is but rather as it is seen by you,” write Proffitt and Baer.
If you are holding something that extends your reach—like a grabber—things appear closer to you, too. In sports, successful baseball batters literally see bigger balls coming at them from the pitcher, and golfers who putt well see bigger holes.
This phenomenon is obvious even in young babies. That’s why, in one experiment, crawling babies showed fear when they were lowered onto a platform with a fake cliff (an apparent drop-off that was actually see-through plastic), but babies who couldn’t crawl didn’t show that same fear. They didn’t see it as scary, because, as non-crawlers, they didn’t need to worry about cliffs yet.
2. Our body awareness affects our decisions
In one experiment, researchers studied hedge fund managers who have to make quick decisions about stock trading under intense pressure. Their strange finding? Managers who could more accurately count their own heartbeats without touching their bodies were more successful traders.
People who were more confident in their accurate count, however, were not more successful, and the bigger the gap between their confidence and accuracy, the higher their anxiety. This suggests that actual awareness of your body can be useful in high-stress work situations.
While it’s uncertain why that would be, it’s possible that people who are more aware of their heartbeats are better able to calm themselves under stress and, therefore, make cooler decisions. Or it could be that successful people who are more attuned to their bodies interpret their perceptions more accurately, understanding how the two interact. Either way, these findings make a case for cultivating greater body awareness.
3. Being hungry (or not) changes our choices
Perception: How Our Bodies Shape Our Minds (St. Martin's Press, 2020, 304 pages)
Our body’s energy levels also impact decision-making. In one experiment, participants who drank a sugary drink made better decisions and delayed immediate gratification longer than people who gulped down a sweet-tasting drink without glucose. Similarly, when judges make parole decisions just before their lunch breaks or the end of their day, they tend to deny parole. That’s because a decision to grant parole requires more careful consideration—and, so, more energy.
Studies have also found that people who’ve enjoyed a tall, sugary glass of lemonade tend to be more helpful to others. And children who eat breakfast do better in school and have fewer behavioral problems.
“The way you think is endlessly tied to how you physically feel,” write the authors. So, it’s important to make sure we (or others we rely on) are not too depleted when hard decisions need to be made.
4. Easy-to-read statements seem more true
Our beliefs about the world also depend on seemingly irrelevant influences. In one experiment, when researchers asked participants to determine the truth of a statement—like “Lima is in Peru”—written in different colors, participants agreed more with easy-to-read statements than less easy-to-read ones. Likewise, statements made in a rhyming scheme—like “Woes unite foes”—were considered truer than statements without a rhyming scheme—like “Woes unite enemies.”
This tendency can be undone if you simply point it out to people. But, otherwise, these forces operate below conscious awareness, and we can be duped by how easy something is to believe or retrieve in our minds.
“Our penchant for fluency makes us susceptible to bullshit—if it feels right, it is right—and when that vulnerability is scaled up to the level of media, you get truthiness and fake news,” the authors write.
5. Our feelings affect our political views
It’s probably not surprising that our feelings affect our perceptions and thoughts.
Still, even for someone like me who knows this research well, Perception held some surprises.
In one study cited in the book, researchers found that people who are more easily disgusted—when imagining things like a garbage pail filled with maggots or a piece of chocolate cake in the shape of dog poo—tend to be more conservative politically. And they tend to have stronger negative feelings about people who support sexual freedoms they disagree with—like gay rights or the right to an abortion.
Feelings like disgust—which come out of the limbic system of our brains, often below conscious awareness—guide our reactions and evaluations, making them less than impartial.
“Emotions allow us to perceive good and ill in a world filled with both. They may seem to come unbidden, but they are, in fact, of our own creation, and they possess both the wisdom and vicissitudes of our oldest and most fundamental brain structures,” write Proffitt and Baer.
6. Feeling bad makes things seem harder
Anyone who’s ever felt sad or depressed knows it’s hard to face the world when you’re down.
But it’s interesting to note that these feelings also change our sensory perceptions. For example, people listening to melancholic music tend to think a hill looks steeper than people listening to happy music.
“Emotions . . . have the job of giving a red or green light toward approaching or avoiding objects, people, and situations, and shape perception accordingly,” write Proffitt and Baer. That means that nurturing our positive emotions may help us to approach difficult tasks more easily—an idea that at least some research bears out.
7. Having other people around make things seem easier
The presence of other people affects our perception in difficult situations, too. Holding hands with someone while experiencing a painful event can lessen the pain. Anticipating having to carry a heavy load with someone else (as opposed to alone) makes it appear lighter, and just thinking about a friend can make hills seem less steep.
Our social connections seem to play a role in reducing stress, which might be why being with others changes our perception of pain or difficulty, making them both easier to bear.
These studies and more point to the centrality of our social relationships for resilience when things are hard.
8. Our political beliefs affect our math skills
Another fascinating finding is how our group affiliations, like the political party we belong to, affect our perceptions. For example, in one study, people were asked to solve math equations to verify the truth of a research finding—like whether a vaccine is effective or whether banning guns saves lives. As predicted, people with greater math skills were able to figure out the answers more easily—but only when the result of the calculation didn’t contradict their political beliefs. If it did, everyone’s math was worse: They solved the problem correctly 25 to 45 percent less often.
This flies in the face of the idea that people just need more information to figure out the truth of a situation. “Thinking—even doing math—is not a process happening in isolation but is instead embedded in our personal thoughts and group identities,” the authors write.
“We literally become flummoxed, stupefied, and incapable of wielding our full faculties when confronted with facts that threaten our social identity.”
All in all, reading about this research should humble us. Clearly, many forces below our conscious awareness affect our perceptions, thoughts, and decisions, and errors abound. Becoming cognizant of those influences could keep us from making costly misjudgments or creating unnecessary conflicts with others who see things differently. The ultimate benefit of that? Hopefully, having a little humility might help all of us to act with less hubris and be more open to other points of view.
What Is Life? How Your Perception Changes All Life On Earth | by Christyl Rivers, Phd.
We can embrace all life to find the value of each one
The human face of life, photo by Christyl RiversWhen is it life?
This week, many people are holding their breath about supreme court appointments, the trends of the election, and the continuing struggle for human equality.
This got me thinking about how seemingly unrelated questions about life, birth, and healthcare, shape our opinions.
Does life begin at conception? Most educators, doctors, and scientists would say no. Life — the only life we know of — began nearly three and one half billion years ago on only one planet in the known universe. One single thread, DNA, ties us to prehistory.
Yet, humans, being so intently centered on only human life, tend to think of life beginning as having everything to do with them. Our hearts go to human life, for that is our primary interest, but a danger emerges when our minds, our thinking skills, come to accept the idea that only human life counts. It’s natural to think “life” means human life, but it also severs our belonging to the living world that provides that “life.”
Before you know it, we are fighting over who is held in high enough regard to make decisions about his/her own life.
The term “life” tends to become a noun. Saying, for example, “My life is a mess,” displays that life is no longer a process, a verb, but an object which has fallen into disrepair, or that it is an unfortunate “being” to which we refer to as if it were a thing.
But what if looking at life this way obscures its moving, progressive power? Empowerment demands movement, activity. When a life becomes a thing it is no longer dynamic on it’s own. Add to that, that life, is much more accurately seen as a quality shared by billions and billions of interdependent organisms. Looked at this way, life cannot be seen as any one single thing. It certainly cannot be possessed, or dominated, only influenced by we who share it.
Religion, politics, and dogma threaten to divide us according to how we define life. Once divided, we are easily conquered to join clashing tribes. Then, we are often kept unaware that our tendency to want to defend our beliefs will imperil other lives, and by extension, whole cultures, the wider world, and our supportive biosphere.
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Larger than life
This is why it is critically important for human beings to enlarge our circle of belonging to include “Life on Planet Earth.” There is little quality of life for those who live without clean air, water, food, or shelter. Increasingly, this includes all life, coral life, rainforest life, desert life, prairie life. To value all this life is not only compassionate outreach but sound applied science.
We cannot protect our lives on Earth unless we come to see the value of “life” itself: biology.
Thoughts shape our words, but the reverse is also true. A word like “life” loaded down with centuries of human ideological weight and dogma, changes meaning in the mind of a person.
Do we want supreme court justices, for example, who believe that life begins at conception? Some do. Some don’t. Either way, we need to very critically examine how and why we hold our views, and even hostile opinions, about a word so seemingly neutral as “life.
”
The very thing that should unite us against the immense void of the universe — we live! — shouldn’t be commandeered to destroy us.
We have lives. Our ability to think and form words and ideas is something to be truly celebrated and appreciated. Let’s be grateful for our ability to question, think, and review something greater than ourselves.
Life and death questions
While we stand at the precipice of the second half of the twenty-first century, there are challenges to life which have been too long ignored at our own peril.
Inequality is one. It stands in the way of uniting for team Earth efforts. The sixth extinction, brought on by the very forces that separate and enrage us — domination and exploitation — threatens us more powerfully if we remain divided. The climate crisis, a very real and complex problem that requires all hands on deck, necessitates that we have thousands of variable tasks to do, from tree planting, to controlled forest burning, from solar skyscrapers to non-toxic intervention against pests and invasive species.
Questions about human rights, which should have been settled long ago, stand in the way of moving forward. Without being overly binary (superior humans versus lesser-than humans) about it, can’t we decide that all humans deserve basic human rights and representation?
Of course this gets tricky when you try to expand inclusion to the unborn human, or say, to those primates that are so close in relation to us that they deserve not just protection, but value in their own right?
This quandary displays exactly why we need to afford full human status to those who should be entitled to weigh in on the difficult questions.
Perception is everything
How we perceive life matters to life, and to the living.
Ours is a planet undergoing severe tests of what Dr. Carl Sagan called our technological adolescence. He meant that when we invent things like Facebook, AI and surveillance technology, warfare technology — including bioweapons and nuclear bombs, we have a tremendous responsibility to know how to use it wisely.
If that technology further divides us, as we have seen happen with the end of objective news perspectives, or isolated silos of biased partisans, we pay an enormous price which we may call the end of truth.
When you throw dogma into the mix, it is messier than ever. Ancient dogma that tells one group that life is an entitlement to which others are excluded, you are courting disaster.
People desperately need education, not indoctrination. When we pursue technological advances with this as a foundational basis, we are more apt to find utilitarian answers that serve all rather than just a few.
Think of climate refugees of an unfamiliar faith who feel their claim to culture and food access is as legitimate as your own. For example, when the bison were exterminated in North America during the nineteenth century, those “entitled” to the slaughter did not take into consideration the preservation of prairies and plains ecosystems.
The perception that manifest destiny is preordained ruined many lives, and not just human lives, of course.
Perception matters. The resentment will remain if someone feels with great zealotry and piety that some privilege, be it housing, healthcare, a good job, or even salvation, should not go to the “undeserving.”
Science and Sense
Science, technology, and social science need to be accessible to all, and conceived of not as evil overlords, but as tools toward improvements.
That said, I do not think we can depend upon just knowledge for moving forward. A huge cultural shift, a movement toward common sense for fairness that any three year old can comprehend is also necessary.
Once upon a time, so called science helped the men of antiquity to envision a great chain of being, a hierarchy that explained why priests and kings were at the top and women and dogs were at the bottom.
But this eat or be eaten food chain turned out to be false. Rather, we exist in a great interwoven web of being and belonging.
It’s time that we began to perceive that reality.
How to change the perception of life
Let's leave aside wealth, status, family well-being and other things that we all seem to really need. There is really only one important difference between happy and unhappy people: perception. VOICE editor Olga Sevastyanova explains how to change it.
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If you think about it, about the same events happen to each of us, but someone is constantly dissatisfied, and someone manages to enjoy even ordinary things. VOICE knows how this is possible, and invites you to conduct a useful experiment on yourself: for 21 days, train 5 features of thinking that will help you live a truly full, happy life.
Day 1-5. Learn not to build expectations. Remember the moment when you were upset about something: how did this feeling arise? You wanted one thing, but got another, or even nothing at all. Now remember the moment of happiness: your wishes probably came true or something happened that you did not expect. Is it true that this rarely happened? This is because our expectations are only the fruit of our imagination, and the world around and other people are not going to follow them.
I didn't get along with men for a very long time,” recalls Ekaterina (31). - After another break with a good, but "some kind of not so" young man, I realized what the problem was. In fact, I wanted all partners to fit into the standard I invented, but did not even suspect its existence. I myself was surprised: why did you build such a rigid framework? Why didn't you just let people be who they are? Why not enjoy the very fact of intimacy with another person?
Same with friends, work, even shopping: they don't have to match your idea of "the best".
And if you feel sorry for the time for senseless attempts to re-educate someone (and you really feel sorry for him), just give up the demands. Any.
Day 6-9. Treat everything as a condition for development. Larisa Parfentyeva, author of 100 Ways to Change Your Life, uses an interesting metaphor for this. Imagine that a person is like a ball of plasticine: he comes into the world perfectly round, but gradually events and meetings leave dents and growths on him. And since nature strives for harmony, the deformed ball is constantly trying to become ideal again - without realizing it, it falls into conditions that should neutralize these irregularities.
Psychologists are sure that we are unsettled by those who “hurt our trauma”, do something that we have not worked through in ourselves. Otherwise, we would simply not pay attention to these people! Your task is not to suffer, but to understand as soon as possible what the situation teaches you and strive to come out of it a better person than you were.
Usually after that it changes itself - "lesson learned".
“My boss changed, and the new girl immediately disliked me,” recalls 27-year-old Tatyana. I have tried different tactics. At first I tried to make friends, then I tried to prove to her that I was "not a camel"; Finally, she defended herself, sometimes quite aggressively. And once I heard about the concept of "psychological aikido" by Irina Khakamada. The point is to gently deflect blows from yourself, for example, first agree with your opponent, and then do it your own way. I stopped emotionally investing in the situation at work, and as soon as it began to work out, I was offered a better position in the next department.
Day 10-13. Stop waiting for someone else's permission and approval . “But I don’t wait,” you say. Sure? Take a piece of paper and write down everything that you have already done or would like to do in life. And now, next to each desire, sign what is needed for this: time or money.
Can you count many items that require neither one nor the other (or enough resources), but things are still there? Why is that? What are you missing?
Mag Jay, author of the excellent book The Big Years, believes that we all fall into this trap of delaying big dreams because we think we are “not ready yet,” “not good enough,” or “the right time hasn’t come.” . And we can live like this for years. After all, the problem is that that very ideal moment will never come, and there is no person in the world who will come to you and say: “Masha, my comrades and I have discussed here and decided that you are finally worthy. Act!”.
“Until the age of 30, I lived as if in anticipation of a higher salary, better relationships, reasons to respect myself. And then I felt that I was depriving myself of joy. Everyone lives their own lives, they don't care about my "daring" actions or "impudent" desires. She went and asked for a pay rise. They refused me, then I found another job, immediately agreed on a month of vacation - the company was ready for this - and left for Latin America, which I had long dreamed of traveling to.
It turned out that getting what you want is easier than I thought, and my strictest judge is myself.”
Day 14-17. Develop empathy. The ability to perceive the emotions of another, to put oneself in his place is inherent in us from birth. The brain has a whole system of neurons called mirror neurons. They react to the actions of other people, and when a person nearby, for example, raises his hand or cries, they transmit signals to the brain, as if you raised your hand or cried. And who really burst into tears, determine the departments that process the information.
This mechanism is a merit of evolution. Reptiles don't have it, so they don't need social connections. Mirror neurons help us to live in society, enjoy communication and even be healthier. As Amy Banks and Lee Hirschman, the authors of the book On the Same Wave, write, without contact with others, a person is more susceptible to diseases of the cardiovascular system and even increases the risk of early death from them by 340%.
All this can be remembered so as not to waste energy in vain. When someone comes into conflict with you, instead of feeling angry, try to put yourself in the place of another. Why is he behaving like this? Maybe from weakness and fear? And shouldn't you sympathize with him? “I never had a relationship with my mother, and when she comes to me and the children for the weekend, we quarrel all the time,” says Victoria, 29. “Once during another argument about how to dress a child for a walk, I looked at her and thought: “Poor woman. All she wants is to get a little respect and love from me. Is it hard for me to give it?” Of course, I didn’t give up my principles of upbringing, but it seemed to let go of me, I stopped being angry with my mother.”
Day 18-21. Get out of the role that grew out of a long time ago. Our idea of who we are is largely not ours. It is woven from fragments of phrases of many people - mom and dad, a kindergarten teacher, a boy from a children's camp, school friends, teachers at the university.
Yes, everyone who has ever expressed their opinion about us. This is normal, this is how we perceive. But this does not mean that you should live all your life in the image that the collective mind has imposed.
If you did a good job on your self-image, great. But isn't it time to reconsider? Our needs, values, and principles change as we go through life, and our behavior must change with them. For example, you always thought of yourself as a shy brunette. It is likely that life experience has long made you sociable and charismatic - just like that familiar blonde that you always liked. It's time to move beyond outdated beliefs and allow yourself to be who you really already are. Maybe start with hair color?
On August 25, two brave girls will start a change in their lives together with Color Expert. Maybe you will be one of them? Participate in the contest and create a new fashion and beauty image for yourself! The winners will receive a certificate for shopping with a stylist, 10 Schwarzkopf grocery baskets and, of course, a whirlwind of fresh impressions and emotions!
How our perception of the world works — Pro Palliative
Human behavior almost completely depends on his perception of the surrounding space.
When the disease changes the nature of the perception of the world, the reactions to it also change. This is especially true for people with dementia.
Irina Prokopenko, psychologist, senior lecturer at ANO "Care Workshop", tells how the "mind games" of a sick person can affect his perception of reality. Knowing these processes will help carers of people with dementia better understand them and possibly avoid unpleasant behaviors.
Honey in the head Care specialist Lena Andrev on how to stop being embarrassed by dementia in loved ones and maintain harmonious relationships in the family
How perception works in healthy people
When we are asked about the senses with which we perceive the world, we most often mention only sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Usually we forget that this is not enough for the proper functioning of the body and psyche. In fact, perception is a separate, complex process that involves many areas of the brain, visual analyzers and spatial sense.
From birth, our brain forms an internal perception of the surrounding space. This internal "picture" allows us to calmly navigate in a familiar environment in the dark - for example, at home at night to go to the toilet or take some object from the table without looking.
Since childhood, we know that daylight comes from above (after all, the sun is there), which means that light is the top for us. At the bottom, there is more often earth and darker areas. This is low for us.
We are surrounded by objects, and the brain learns to determine their boundaries. Even if the objects have the same color, we will distinguish a white book on a white table - by contour, shadows, edges, and focusing on the characteristics of the top and bottom.
The generalization process works very well for us: we can see the pattern repeating on the wallpaper, because we perceive the wall as a whole and can track the repetition of the picture and at the same time perceive the wall as a whole.
We perceive more distant objects as small and closer objects as large. This is how we understand the depth of the scene in front of us and the remoteness of the figures.
Perceiving the space in front of us, we see it as three-dimensional, as we perceive not only objects, but also an “aerial perspective”. Therefore, we do not have the illusion that the standing objects on the table are drawn on paper.
Even if the whole object is not visible, our brain completes the picture, and we can find out what is in front of us.
An important role in perception is played by the focus of attention and awareness of what we see. What our attention is focused on at the moment can be called the figure, and everything that surrounds the figure is the background.
In addition, the relationship of parts and the whole in perception allows us, relying on identifying features, to easily perceive the whole object.
The perception of objects is greatly influenced by the contrast of objects and their surroundings.
For example, surrounded by small objects, another object will appear larger, and vice versa.
However, our brain can make mistakes, and then illusions arise.
Artist Peter Kogler with dizzying wall art. He turns ordinary galleries and lobbies into almost hallucinatory experiences. Photo from kulturologia.ru
How perception works in people with dementia
Dementia is a disease in which not only behavior changes, memory and concentration ability deteriorate, but most importantly, brain function and perception of the environment are disturbed.
Dementia Anxiety Management What to do when your loved one with dementia yells or talks a lot, gets stuck on a topic, makes repetitive movements, can't calm down? What are the reasons for this behavior and what can be done to help?
When caring for patients with dementia, one of the main problems is their inappropriate behavior, aggression and the constant desire to go somewhere.
In many cases, the reason for this is a distorted perception of the surrounding reality, hallucinations and illusions.
But not every patient, especially if he can already speak poorly, is able to report what he sees and what frightens him. Let's take a look at how dementia patients perceive the world.
People with dementia often have problems with light and color perception. Thus, the illusion is created that “everything around has turned black” and night has come, or, conversely, everything has become bright, like daytime, and it is not clear what time of day it is.
In a situation where nature, weather and surroundings are perceived as suddenly darkened, this is associated with danger, a thunderstorm or a storm, and depending on past, often childhood experiences of such natural phenomena, especially in rural areas, causes anxiety, fear and need take cover or hide.
Dementia in many cases makes people very sensitive to light, so the dim, cozy light of a night lamp or floor lamp can be perceived as dazzling by the patient.
The perception of color and shadow changes. A shadow can be perceived as a separate object, and many dark-colored objects are perceived as even darker.
The disturbance of perception also concerns the boundaries of objects. So, a white plate on a white tablecloth will not be visible to a person, and a door painted the same color as the walls can cause panic, as there will be a fear of an enclosed space.
Small objects, especially those that can be dangerous, become "invisible". And some necessary items, such as glasses, a person cannot find, because he forgot where he put them, and he is no longer able to notice even in a conspicuous place.
Small patterns, dots, dark spots on the wall or wallpaper can be distorted, taking on the images of small animals, insects and rodents. This often causes panic, fear, or an attack of disgust.
Disturbances of perception concerning the floor and floor coverings and shadows on them. Carpet with a small two-tone color can be perceived as water or a pit, as well as something that moves, flowing.
Also, coatings with a pattern of dots or small details can cause the illusion of movement.
A special class of illusions causes a two-tone coating of blue-gray with green. This combination of colors in contrast with, for example, the color of the parquet, can evoke the illusion of a deep gorge or abyss, the gray-green color of which resembles the tops of trees growing at the bottom of the gorge.
After all, a person has a “rule”: when he looks down, there can be both stable ground and an accidental cliff or hole. By the way, such illusions can also occur in healthy people when they are very tired or look at a similar pattern for a long time.
People with dementia often have problems with depth and distance perception, making it difficult for many to use stairs.
People with dementia are especially concerned about mirrors and mirror coatings. At an advanced stage of dementia, patients perceive their reflection as a living person and may talk to it or be afraid of it.
