Components of Perception

Perception is a process of sensory organs. The mind gets information through the five sense organs, viz., the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. The stimulation coming to these organs may be through action, written messages, oral communication, odour, taste, touch of the product and people. The perception starts with the awareness of these stimuli. Recognizing these stimuli takes place only after paying attention to them. These messages are then translated into action and behaviour.

1. Stimuli

The receipt of information is the stimulus, which results in sensation. Knowledge and behaviour depend on senses and their stimulation. The physical senses used by people are vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Intuitions and hunches are known as the sixth sense. These senses are influenced by a larger number of stimuli, which may be action, information, consideration and feelings, etc.

The stimuli may be in the form of objects or physical commodities. The human body itself is developed through the acceptance of the stimuli. The mind and soul are the victims of these stimuli occurring in the surroundings of the people. The family, social and the economic environment are important stimuli for the people. The physiological and psychological functions are the result of these stimuli.

The intensive and extensive forms of stimuli have a greater impact on the sensory organs. The physical work environment, sociocultural environment and other factors have certain stimuli to influence the employee’s perception. In all, the perception begins only when people deal with stimuli; that is, stimulating factors give information about the situation.

2. Attention

People selectively attend to stimuli. Some of the stimuli are reacted to while others are ignored without being paid any attention. The stimuli that are paid attention depend purely on the people’s selection capacity and the intensity of stimuli. Educated employees pay more attention to any stimuli, viz., announcement of bonus, appeal for increasing productivity, training and motivation. The management has to find out suitable stimuli, which can appeal to the employees at the maximum level.

If the attention of the employees is not drawn, the organization cannot expect proper behaviour from the employees. An organization should be aware of all those factors, which affect the attention of the employees. During the attention process, sensory and neural mechanisms are affected and the message receiver becomes involved in understanding the stimuli. Taking employees to the attention stage is essential in an organization for making them behave in a systematic and required order.

3. Recognition

After paying attention to the stimuli, the employees try to recognize whether the stimuli are worth realizing. The messages or incoming stimuli are recognized before they are transmitted into behaviour. Perception is a two-phase activity, i.e., receiving stimuli and translating the stimuli into action. However, before the stage of translation, the stimuli must be recognized by the individual.

The recognition process is dependent on mental acceptability. For example, if a car driver suddenly sees a child in front of his running car, he stops the car. He recognizes the stimuli, i.e., the life of the child is in danger. His mental process recognizes the danger after paying attention to the stimuli. If he does not pay attention to the stimuli, he cannot recognize the danger. After recognizing the stimuli, he translates the message into behaviour.

4. Translation

The stimuli are evaluated before being converted into action or behaviour. The evaluation process is translation. In the above example, the car driver after recognizing the stimuli uses the clutch and brake to stop the car. He has immediately translated the stimulus into an appropriate action. The perception process is purely mental before it is converted into action. The conversion is translation. The management in an organization has to consider the various processes of translating the message into action. The employees should be assisted to translate the stimuli into action.

For example, the announcement of bonus should be recognized as a stimulus for increasing production. The employee should translate it into appropriate behaviour. In other words, they should be motivated by the management to increase productivity. During the translation period, psychological mechanism commonly known as sensory and mental organs is affected. They influence perception. The incoming stimuli are interpreted and perception is developed.

5. Behaviour

Behaviour is the outcome of the cognitive process. It is a response to change in sensory inputs, i.e., stimuli. It is an overt and covert response. Perceptual behaviour is not influenced by reality, but is a result of the perception process of the individual, his learning and personality, environmental factors and other internal and external factors at the workplace.

The psychological feedback that may influence the perception of an employee may be superior behaviour, his eye movement, raising of an eyebrow, the tone of voice, etc. The behaviour of employees depends on perception, which is visible in the form of action, reaction or other behaviour. The behavioural termination of perception may be overt or covert.

The overt behaviour of perception is witnessed in the form of physical activities of the employees and covert behaviour is observed in the form of mental evaluation and self-esteem. The perception behaviour is the result of the cognitive process of the stimulus, which may be a message, or an action situation of management function. Perception is reflected in behaviour, which is visible in different forms of employees’ action and motivation.

6. Performance

Proper behaviour leads to higher performance. High performers become a source of stimuli and motivation to other employees. A performance-reward relationship is established to motivate people.

7. Satisfaction

High performance gives more satisfaction. The level of satisfaction is calculated with the difference in performance and expectation. If the performance is more than the expectation, people are delighted, but when performance is equal to expectation, it results in satisfaction. On the other hand, if performance is less than the expectation, people become frustrated and this requires a more appealing form of stimulus for developing proper employee work behaviour and high performance.

It is essential to understand the factors that influence the perception process and mould employees’ behaviour towards the corporate objectives and self-satisfaction. Individuals observe several stimuli every day. They confront these stimuli, notice and register them in their minds, interpret them and behave according to their background and understanding.

Employees confronted with stimuli select only a few stimuli of their choice and leave other stimuli unattended and unrecognized. Factors influencing the selective process may be external as well as internal, organizational structures, social systems and characteristics of the perceiver.