Set (psychology)

Perception can be shaped by "top-down" processes such as drives and expectations. An effect of these factors is that people are particularly sensitive to perceive certain things, detecting them from weaker stimuli than otherwise.{{cite book|last1=Coon|first1=Dennis|last2=Mitterer|first2=John O.|title=Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vw20LEaJe10C&pg=PA171|accessdate=24 March 2011|date=29 December 2008|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-0-495-59911-1|pages=171–172}} A simple demonstration of the effect involved very brief presentations of non-words such as "sael". Subjects who were told to expect words about animals read it as "seal", but others who were expecting boat-related words read it as "sail".

Sets can be created by motivation and so can result in people interpreting ambiguous situations so that they see what they want to see. For instance, a person's experience of the events in a sports match can be biased if they strongly support one of the teams.{{cite book|last1=Block|first1=J. R.|last2=Yuker|first2=Harold E.|title=Can You Believe Your Eyes?: Over 250 Illusions and Other Visual Oddities|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uNMFiMQu8BMC&pg=PA173|accessdate=24 March 2011|date=1 October 2002|publisher=Robson|isbn=978-1-86105-586-6|pages=173–174}} In one experiment, students were allocated to pleasant or unpleasant tasks by a computer. They were told that either a number or a letter would flash on the screen to say whether they were going to taste an orange juice drink or an unpleasant-tasting health drink. In fact, an ambiguous figure was flashed on screen, which could either be read as the letter B or the number 13. When the letters were associated with the pleasant task, subjects were more likely to perceive a letter B, and when letters were associated with the unpleasant task they tended to perceive a number 13.

Perceptual sets have been demonstrated in many social contexts. People who are primed to think of someone as "warm" are more likely to perceive a variety of positive characteristics in them, than if the word "warm" is replaced by "cold". When someone has a reputation for being funny, an audience are more likely to find them amusing. Individual's perceptual sets reflect their own personality traits. For example, people with an aggressive personality are quicker to correctly identify aggressive words or situations.

Mental sets are subconscious tendencies to approach a problem in a particular way, either helping or interfering in the discovery of a solution. They are shaped by past experiences, habits, and, most importantly, culture.{{Cite book|title=Towards the Pragmatic Core of English for European Communication: The Speech Act of Apologising in Selected Euro-Englishes|last=Klimczak-Pawlak|first=Agata|publisher=Springer|year=2014|isbn=9783319035567|location=Cham|pages=49}} These sets also exist as parts of our cognitive processes although they do not always enter consciousness. This is demonstrated in the way bookkeepers can balance their book without being aware of using addition or subtraction.{{Cite book|title=An Introduction to the History of Psychology, Sixth Edition|last=Hergenhahn|first=B.R.|publisher=Wadsworth Cengage Learning|year=2009|isbn=9780495506218|location=Belmont, CA|pages=284}} An inappropriate mental set hampers the solution of straightforward problems. This could happen if the set contains a false assumption or a belief that is not correct. For example, when people are asked, "When a United States plane carrying Canadian passengers crashes in international waters, where should the survivors be buried?" the phrasing of the question suggests that it is a problem of international law. People who interpret the statement with this mental set will miss the fact that survivors would not need to be buried. A specific form of mental set is functional fixedness, in which someone fails to see the variety of uses to which an object can be put.{{cite book|last=Mangal|first=S. K.|title=Essentials of educational psychology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XyYPIr120ZcC&pg=PA393|accessdate=25 March 2011|date=1 August 2007|publisher=PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.|isbn=978-81-203-3055-9|pages=393–394}} An example would be someone who needs a weight but fails to use an easily available hammer because their mental set is to think of a hammer as for a specific purpose.

• Basic beliefs
• Mental model
• Mental representation
• Paradigm
• Rigidity (psychology)
• Schema (psychology)
• Worldview

{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book|last1=Quinlan|first1=Philip|last2=Dyson|first2=Ben|title=Cognitive psychology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SgeUWo4sUhAC&pg=PA163|accessdate=25 March 2011|year=2008|publisher=Pearson/Prentice Hall|isbn=978-0-13-129810-1|pages=163–166}}
• {{cite book|last=Sternberg|first=Robert J.|title=Cognitive Psychology|year=2009|publisher=Wadsworth Cengage Learning|location=Belmont, California|isbn=978-0-495-50629-4|pages=449–457}}

{{World view}}

{{Mental processes}}

Category:Experimental psychology

Category:Perception