Selective perception

Selective perception is a psychological phenomenon in which only certain aspects of the environment perceived and others hidden. Selective perception may be caused by priming, framing or similar effects.

Selective perception is based on the ability to detect patterns, a basic mechanism of the human brain. The brain is constantly to integrate new information into existing better to be able to search for patterns. The selective perception is the - mostly unconscious - Search for a specific pattern. This is necessary in order to manage the wealth of information at all. Arguments that support your position are more perceived as such, they damage.

But even positive stimuli can be selectively perceived, for example, the attractiveness of a flirt partner.

The selection of the perceived sensations is influenced by various factors such as experience, expectations, attitudes and interests.

Example 1: If you read in a magazine an article about "political correctness", it will sooner and more accurately than other articles pay attention to whether words or statements "politically correct" appear.

Example 2: A variation of the Vorführeffekts: If one carries in a period such as 20 different things before and thinks every time: " This is definitely wrong," it is the demonstration effect deemed to exist, even if it is only once goes wrong ( "I knew it. "). The other 19 times you will not remember that they had conjured up the demonstration effect before.

From the above-described psychological phenomenon different, often one speaks in the vernacular of " selective perception" when a person is fixated on a particular topic, his life priorities shifted, it filters out only certain information and statements on this very subject - for him controversial issue - reinforced perceives and no longer recognize other information with the same priority or only noticed sparse, as if he had on a pair of glasses, which only lets through certain colors of the spectrum, here are the aspects of his " stimulus topic ". He perceives only what he believes to recognize it, while everything else is hidden.

You may also view the phenomenon of leadership in traffic is due to selective perception.