What are the factors of Perception??

Perception is the process by which individuals organize
and interpret the signals received through their sensory organs to give meaning to their
environment. What we perceive is definitely influenced by the environment which
generates the signal received by sensory organs. But the same signals are not perceived
by all individuals in the same way. There are differences. As a matter of fact there may
be difference in the way an individual perceives the same object in the environment
under different conditions.

The factors that influence
perception include the characteristics of the perceiver, target perceived, and the
situation or context within which the perception takes
place.

Personal characteristics of individual like
attitudes, motives, interests, past experience and expectations impact his or her
perception. Then the characteristics of the object or the target being perceived also
influence the perception. But it is important to note that what the individual perceives
is not exact replica of the reality. The target consists of many constituent elements
and the way these are organised cause the individual to perceive some while leave out
the others. Similar the arrangements of the elements also tends to enlarge or shrink in
our mind the significance of different features of the target. The context within which
the perception takes place is also a very important determinant of how the physical
reality of the target will be perceived by the individual. Things like time at which an
object is seen, the location where it is seen, heat, light, and many other factors
influence perception.