Culture & Perception

Culture & Perception

1. PERCEIVING

   • 3. Interpretation
     • Decoding, attaching meaning
       • Subtle cultural judgements affect our perception
   • 1. Selection
     • We learn from culture what stimuli to select from the environment
   • 2. Organization
     • Organizing the selected stimuli in a meaningful way
       • Language allows agrupation
         • Ex: dogs=pets

2. LANGUAGE

   • Provides conceptual categories that influence perception's codification and storage
   • Creates differences that don't exist in reality

3. HIGH CONTEXT

   • Indirect & implicit communication
     • Use of intermediaries
   • More sensitive to non-verbal language
   • Less has to be said or written
     • Meaning is in physical environment
   • Germany, North Americ,a, Switzerland, Nordic Stated
   • Info. in physical context or internalized in the person
   • Greater distinction bewteen insiders & outsiders
   • Greater expectation of others
   • People feel closer thanks to the importance of shared context

4. LOW CONTEXT

   • Japan, China, Korea, Latin America,, Mideterranean Cultures
   • Elaborated, detailed, reluctant & specific messages
   • No assumptions
   • Little meaning determined by context
   • Lower expectation of others
   • Attention is focused on context-independent content

5. SENSING

   • Touch
     • Automatic reflex reactions
     • Related to PAIN, TEMPERATURE & PRESSURE
   • Sight
     • 20% of what is available to see is lost or distorted
     • Where the most info. about the external world comes from
   • Sensation is a neurological process by which we become aware of the environment
     • ≠ stimuli can produce the = sensations and = stimuli can produce ≠ sensations
       • Route stimuli-sensation conditioned by CULTURE
         • People from ≠ cultures behave as thought they sense ≠ things
   • Hearing
     • Noise pollution has reduced our healing fidelity
     • 22%-25% loss
   • Smell
     • Unlikely that 2 persons will have the same smell capability
     • We can differentiate 5,000 sme,lls
     • 1 person can identify one smell differently at different times
   • Taste
     • Only an approximate
     • 10,000 diifferentiated taste sensations
   • Body Movements
     • EQUILIBRIUM
       • Info. to know if we are falling, rotating....
     • KINESTHESIS
       • Pain & pressure receptors

6. Jandt, F. (2010). Culture’s Influence on Perception. An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community (6th ed.). (pp.59-76): Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.