Selective Perception

takenfrom http://www.ciadvertising.org/student_account/fall_01/adv382j/howardmo/selectiveperception.html

Selective Perception

You're a twelve-year-old boy and a Britney Spears' Pepsi commercial has just come on the television. Your mother is in the middle of asking you whether or not you've fed the dogs and clarifying that Charger, the fat dog, needs less food than George, the other dog. You were listening to her just fine a moment ago. But, suddenly, something's changed; Britney's arrived on the scene.

Meanwhile, your mother continues to talk because, in her world, while there may be a Britney Spears, there's not room for one at this moment. In your mother's mind there's only room for hungry dogs who need to be fed now and a 12-year-old boy who needs feeding soon. Your mother realizes she's lost you and that any communication regarding feeding procedures is pointless for the next 15 or so seconds.

Then, as Britney dances into the sunset, a commercial comes on for Hamburger Helper and your mother is mesmerized. "What was that you were saying?" you ask her. After no reply you proceed to feeding the dogs, making sure that you give Charger an extra helping so that he can maintain his impressive bulk.

Donald E. Broadbent, in the late 1950's, created a model of human perception, which holds that, due to limited capacity, we must process information selectively (1958). That is to say, there are restrictions on our individual perceptual systems which make it so that, when presented with information from two different channels, i.e. methods of delivery such as visual and auditory, our perceptual system processes only that which it believes to be most relevant. Furthermore, Broadbent, puts forth that we are able to switch unnoticed between channels when one channel is deemed just as necessary to our well-being as another (1971).

The comical, but familiar to many, episode described above gives us a peek at how a twelve-year-old boy has selected what information he is going to process. This example allows us to witness the four phases in the human information receiving process. As we receive, and then disseminate, information received from the world around us through our senses, we progress through four stages: stimulation, registration, organization and, finally, interpretation (Arul, 2000). Perception occurs during the first and last phases of the process. The first phase, stimulation, can occur only when something is noticed and to be noticed it must first be perceived. As we progress through these four phases, the role of true facts gathered from the stimulation diminishes, while the role of garnering meaning from the stimulation increases.

This last phase, interpretation, gives meaning to the stimulation based on both external factors (such as the actual stimulus) and internal factors (such as how the stimulus is perceived to fit the receiver's needs). These internal factors live below our level of conscious cognition and are recognizing and compartmentalizing the meaning of the stimulus without knowing effort on our part. These same internal factors, as determinants of how we interpret our world, tend to "select" that which fits most congruously with how they currently exist. Eventually, we become habitualized into certain ways of perceiving the facts via this process during which we are exposed to information, attend to that information and comprehend the information (Minor & Mowen, 1998).

How does this tie in with the Britney Spears' Pepsi commercial and a twelve-year-old boy? Visual and audio stimulation (Britney) grab the boy's attention. He then registers that it is, indeed, Britney and that she's dancing and singing. His mind begins to organize what stimulation and registration have brought him and it searches for the meaning of Britney dancing and singing. Finally, ah ha!, interpretation! Britney = "sexy," or even "speaks for my generation" (plus a likely host of perceptions that cannot even be verbalized).

Meanwhile, in order for this process to occur, this very process has had to shut down in other areas. That's why he doesn't hear his mother talking to him. And she is going through this process as well except it's the reason she's not seeing Britney; her internal factors don't interpret the stimulation the same way her son does.

Back to our example (for those of you who really dislike Britney, my apologies): what we see happening is mother and son perceiving the stimuli in the manner in which it will best satisfy her or his own needs. Each recognizes her or his needs, interests, cultural values, and background in the stimuli at hand- all the stimuli at hand, not just Britney. Each responds, or does not respond, according to how well the stimuli makes it through the four phases of processing. The process of choosing what will make it through these four phases is selective perception. We even utilize selective perception when we choose what we will selectively perceive!

From a purely biological standpoint our senses are utilized to perceive the world around us and to help us learn about it (Kerby, 1975). We take in stimuli from this world by tasting, touching, smelling, hearing and seeing what's going on around us. Since stimulation comes at us from several directions at once, we have the biological capability to physically 'tune out' most of what we do not need for the task at hand.

Selective perception from a psychological standpoint is how we view our world to create or justify our own reality (Sherif & Cantril, 1945). It means, for example, that what we wish to see in this world we will see in this world. Information we receive will be processed in a manner that harmonizes with and supports our current beliefs. In other words, as Nietzsche put so well, there really are no facts, only interpretations.

What makes selective perception different from other types of perception is the way it's used. In general, selective perception is used to protect us. The type of selective perception we engage in when we drive protects us from getting into an accident. In this way, we don't attend to all stimuli coming our way at one time. We ignore much of what is not needed for the task at hand (Burgoon, Burgoon & Miller, 1981). Selective perception utilized in this manner is what Sherif and Cantril call "selectivity of perception" and refers to an individual's investigation of the "objective world to which the individual is actually paying attention" (Petty, Ostrom & Brock, 1981, p. 11).

Sherif and Cantril call the type of selective perception we engage in when we strive for internal consistency "frame of reference" (Petty, et.al., 1981, p. 11). Frame of reference protects us by confirming our beliefs and interpretations. Such confirmation allows us to operate in the world via categories we've set up to keep us from becoming cognitively overwhelmed. Miller, in his classic work, "The Magical Number 7, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information," proposes that we extend our capacity for information processing by creating categories into which stimuli are organized (1956). But, this capacity, like the raw data we can process, has its limits.

How Does Selective Perception Work?

We select our perceptions at one of two levels: low-level (perceptual vigilance) or high-level (perceptual defense) (Assael, 1985). This selection takes place after we receive stimuli and begin the next phase in information processing: registration. It is during the registration phase that we are utilizing past interpretations to help us select how to perceive the current stimuli (Travers, 1970). During this phase of information processing, we determine at which level the stimuli belong and, even more importantly, we determine if it belongs to us at all.

Evidence of low-level, or, vigilant perception, can be found in the way we respond to current activities going on around us in the present. This level is primarily concerned with physical safety and incorporates our senses to filter out what is not needed to achieve the task at hand. Thus, this bundle of stimuli is usually relegated to the box that Sherif and Cantril would call "selectivity of perception."

High-level perception, or perceptual defense, is more withstanding and long-term and acts as the baseline for interpreting "facts." This level is that at which we choose to perceive the world in which we live and relate it to our belief systems and ways of being. We are, as Sherif puts it in his field of perception concept, "self-referencing" by using ourselves as our own frame of reference (1946).

It is at this level of selectively perceiving that we likely don't even realize we are, indeed, the ones doing the selecting. Over the course of time the meanings we've created become routinely imbedded in our general stock of knowledge. According to Burgoon, Burgoon and Miller (1981) once a certain response is evoked by a stimulus there is a great likelihood that, in the future, a similar stimulus will evoke a similar response.

Both levels of perception are created by habit so that they can become habit. We habitualize both low-level and high-level ways of selectively perceiving in order to make it easier to protect ourselves - either from external factors (usually physical) or internal dissonance (Assael, 1985). When we habitualize low-level ways of interpreting we provide a routine map to help us sort through our sensory data. The act of habitualizing our high-level interpretations allows us to maintain a view of the world that remains consistent to our cognitive processes. This need for consistency is what drives the processes of both high and low-level selective perception (Moore & Thorson, 1996).

For an example of low-level habitualizing think of when you first learned to drive. At first you hadn't yet established the habit of responding to what it is that presents the most present danger to your safety. You had, by that point, already habitualized the pattern of perceiving the world by filtering out information that is non-necessary for the task at hand. So you were already in the habit of doing that. Until you'd driven a car for a while you don't know what truly was necessary for that particular task, but, as soon as you did, by golly, you made a habit out of it! Why? Because you're habitualized to habitualize.

The reason we make our way of perceiving, as well as the very act of perceiving, into habitualized actions is that such actions carry with them the psychological gain that we receive when our choices are narrowed. When our choices of perception are narrowed it frees us from the burden of the myriad of real decisions life gives us. Thus, according to Berger and Luckmann (1967) habitualizing what we perceive provides "a psychological relief that has its basis in man's undirected instinctual structure." Furthermore, Berger and Luckmann contend that "habitualization provides the direction and the specialization of activity that is lacking in man's biological equipment, thus relieving the accumulation of tensions that result from undirected drives." The result is a stabilization that allows for a solid background against which human beings can go forward. With many "facts" securely woven into this background, the individual now has open to him a foreground available for deliberation and innovation (Berger & Luckmann, 1967, p.53).

Since our knowledge of everyday life is structured in terms of what we perceive to be relevant to us and our actions are governed by what's relevant to us, it makes sense that, for advertising to be effective, it must be relevant to us. Advertising may reach the esteemed level of relevance if it is deemed to speak to "immediate pragmatic interests of [yours]" or to your "general situation in society" (Berger & Luckmann, 1967, p.45). Furthermore, it is not until the point where what is relevant to you intersects with the relevance structure of advertising that you feel the advertising has something interesting to say to you. Thus, we see that the essential element needed for involvement is perceived personal relevance (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981; Richins & Bloch, 1986).

When the receiver perceives the information supplied by advertising as relevant, the advertising has the opportunity to be effective. However, when the intention and the perception do not meet up, the advertising has missed its target. Relevance is, in part, determined by how well the new information fits with what is already "known" by the individual. The incoming message is judged according to how 'close' or how 'far' it is from the beliefs of the person receiving the message (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981, p. 122).

That which does not come 'close' to the attitudes of the person receiving the message, according to Festinger, creates dissonance. He notes that "dissonance is psychologically uncomfortable and an individual will seek to reduce it" (1957). What makes dissonance uncomfortable is the same thing that can make a shoe that's too small uncomfortable: it simply doesn't fit. In this case, information 'far' from the receiver's currently held attitudes doesn't fit with those perceptions that have already been defined as "facts." In the case of cognitive dissonance, this misfit manifests itself as an unpleasant psychological tension. Berger and Luckmann postulate that we utilize selective perception in order to not only avoid this tension but to relieve it as well (1967).

As self-referencers, we selectively perceive advertising based upon how it relates to our self-concept. If advertising helps us to perceive that a product is not only relevant, but also instrumental in helping us to achieve goals that assist in the maintenance of our selective perceptions, then it has achieved its goal. The advertising has become self-related and congruous with our selves (Celsi & Olson, 1988).

However, according to Celsi and Olson (1988), this perspective "explicitly recognizes that a consumer's perception or feeling of personal relevance for an object or event is an acute state that only occurs in certain situations. Even objects or events that are extremely important to an individual are not experienced as personally relevant at all times." Thus enters integrated marketing communication or IMC.

IMC, simply put, is "the coordination of messages for maximum impact" (Thorson & Moore, 1996, p. 333). These messages are coordinated in context and placed within a number of channels. Thus, the basic message is the same throughout the overall message structure but the delivery method varies. The ultimate goal of IMC is to achieve linkages in the mind of a consumer that allow a message to have more impact than it would if it was on its own.

IMC incorporates the idea of synergy, which suggests that, the "entire structure of messages, creates meaning and impact" (Thorson & Moore, 1996, p.333). This structure of messages is effective because not only do we not perceive all things relevant at all times, but not all channels of message transmission (stimuli) are effective at all times. In other words, if the twelve-year-old had just listened to a Britney Spears' CD one hundred times in a row he may not have been so mesmerized by the Pepsi commercial.

Because of an increasing abundance of physical stimuli generated by competing messages, it's getting more difficult for advertisers to get through to consumers in order to initiate the information processing phases. IMC provides a way in which the consumer can eventually be reached while recognizing his need for cognitive consistency by providing the consumer with many channels in which to receive the same message (Moore & Thorson, 1996, p. 334).

IMC is like buying lottery tickets: the more you buy the greater are your chances of winning something. Furthermore, if we get more than one winning ticket (i.e. IMC makes it through to us via more than one channel) then we've hit the jackpot. When this happens, an advertiser utilizing IMC has a greater chance of being selected for perception in the future; because of IMC's inherent makeup it satisfies our internal need for consistency, repetition and validation of that which was previously interpreted. According to Moore and Thorson, "consumer responses, then, are governed by the interaction of new information with the complex structure of previously acquired information" (1996, p. 335).

To Sum It Up

When one understands selective perception and how it works, one must also recognize what an important role it plays in advertising. A major goal of advertising is consumer involvement - the more involved the consumer becomes the more he or she is motivated to comprehend the information being presented. This motivation creates a path that paves the way for more elaborate information processing with regard to the advertiser's message (Minor & Mowen, 1998). In other words, the more involved the consumer is, the better chance the advertiser has of getting through both the perceptual vigilance and perceptual defense of said consumer. If the advertising makes it through and is a cognitive match, well, it could be a match made in heaven...

...if you doubt me, go ask that 12-year-old.

There are no facts, but just interpretations. Friedrich Nietzsche

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