Question

Explain how our expectations, contexts, emotions, and motivation influence our perceptions.

Answer 1

Perception is the way our brain interprets the information we acquire through our senses; sight, smell or touch for example. Being a subjective interpretation this is influenced by several higher cortical functions, such as expectations or motivation that we have, that is, we hope to perceive or because we expect a certain perception. For example, it is not the same to drink a beverage whose flavor we already knew, to drink a new flavor, we tend to perceive better a new flavor and to compare it with schemes that we had previously.

Emotions influence our perception because the mood determines how we will interpret what we are perceiving, for example, if we are angry and suddenly we hear a criticism, we may interpret it differently than if we heard it with another state of mind.

Finally, the context influences the perception by giving a referential frame to what we perceive or influence physiologically, for example, the sensation of drinking water in the desert or on a mountain, we perceive it differently.