ON THE CONTEXT-DEPENDENCE OF PERCEPTION.
Item
-
Title
-
ON THE CONTEXT-DEPENDENCE OF PERCEPTION.
-
Identifier
-
AAI8312338
-
identifier
-
8312338
-
Creator
-
CHANOWITZ, BENZION.
-
Contributor
-
Ellen Langer | Lindsey Churchill
-
Date
-
1983
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Psychology, Social
-
Abstract
-
A framework for detailing the manner in which social perception depends upon context is presented. An historical preface outlines the tensions between mechanism and vitalism in 18th and 19th Century physical science; and how the triumph of mechanism influenced the development and direction theory and research in perception during the 19th Century. The grounds for a causal model of natural perception that would lend credibility to a natural science of perception and psychology are given. The inadequancy of such grounds as the basis for an account of social perception are detailed. Three studies are presented through which an alternative account of social perception can be generated. In a manner similar to the procedures of Rosch (1973), subjects were asked to make judgments of prototypicality about a category-bound set of objects that were presented in either lexical (Study 1) or pictorial (Study 2) form. The targeted sets of items, in all cases, were embedded within one of two larger sets of items. Each of these larger sets gave different form to the "same" embedded targeted set. Subjects' prototypicality judgments of the "same" objects were influenced by the context invoked through the larger set of items that surrounded the targeted set. In Study 3, the stimuli from Study 2 were "hidden" in a drawing. Subjects were required to find and name the hidden objects. The names subjects gave to the targeted set of objects were again influenced by whichever larger set of objects surrounded them, despite the fact that in this case there was no mention of the category-bound character of the set of presented objects. Disparities in social perception may be a function of distinctive contexts that are deployed in order to give shape to the social world. An alternative account of bias and perception is offered in that light.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
-
Program
-
Psychology
