Perceptual Set
What is a Perceptual Set?
A perceptual set is a psychological tendency to perceive or interpret information based on prior experiences, expectations, and emotions. While it helps us process information efficiently, it can also lead to biases. Perceptual sets influence our experience of the world and the decisions we make by shaping how we interpret sensory input.
The Basic Idea
Imagine you’re meeting up with a friend, and she arrives with coffee for you both: a Starbucks coffee in one hand and a Dunkin’ coffee in the other. She hands you the Starbucks cup and sips from her Dunkin’, telling you, “I got you Starbucks because I know it’s your favorite.”
She knows you so well! You prefer Starbucks coffee, while your friend prefers Dunkin’. You are happily sipping your coffee when she suggests you try hers. You take a sip, and as you expected, it’s not as good as your Starbucks drink. But here’s the catch—your friend had actually ordered two coffees from Dunkin’ but poured yours into a Starbucks cup. She knew your bias towards the coffee brand and had a gut feeling that your preference was superficial.
In this example, your taste has been impacted by a perceptual set. Your past experiences, expectations, and beliefs have led you to perceive the coffee in the Starbucks cup as better than the Dunkin’ coffee, even though they are the exact same. Perceptual sets are a predisposition to perceive things in a certain way and focus on aspects that confirm our existing ideas.1 Because you’ve always claimed Starbucks was the best, your brain was inclined to confirm that as you sipped it. You’re no longer going to be able to argue with your friend that Starbucks beats Dunkin’!
It may seem strange that what we see, hear, or taste can be influenced by a perceptual set, as we tend to think of our brains as objective evaluators of external stimuli. However, because we encounter an overwhelming abundance of environmental stimuli on a daily basis, perceptual sets help our brains make sense of the information. Our expectations for understanding and classifying stimuli prime the brain to perceive them in a particular way.2 We are creatures of habit, after all!
“What you see is not what others see. We inhabit parallel worlds of perception, bounded by our interests and experience. What is obvious to some is invisible to others.”
— George Monbiot, British journalist3
About the Author
Emilie Rose Jones
Emilie currently works in Marketing & Communications for a non-profit organization based in Toronto, Ontario. She completed her Masters of English Literature at UBC in 2021, where she focused on Indigenous and Canadian Literature. Emilie has a passion for writing and behavioural psychology and is always looking for opportunities to make knowledge more accessible.
