half-glass full, half-glass empty?

Half glass empty, half glass full? Such is the basic idea of perception that is commonly brought across to us.

What is perception really?

Perception is a process by which we make sense of the world around us. Most importantly, be it half-glass empty or full, perception is definitely a determining factor in how we communicate to others. Seiler and Beall defines perception as "The process of selecting, organising, and interpreting information in order to give personal meaning to the meaning to the communication we recieve."

I feel that one of the major influences to our perception is our cognitive schemata. This is part of the organising process of perception and is our default mental framework that each individual has developed over time.
WhenI describe to you a guy wearing glasses with black plastic frames, and a faded shirt from another era tucked into a pair of worn-out cargos you may instantly think: nerd, un-cool, geek (or at least something pops up in your mind la, haha) This would be an example of a cognitive schemata, or more specifically, personal protyping. We usually form these personal prototypes over time through our culture, environment and past experiences, and would most likely apply these assumptions if we come across simliar people/situations in future. In addition, media also reinforces these common personal prototypes through television shows and advertisements.

A personal construct also works like a personal prototype. If we knew we were talking to a lawyer, we would be more concious of how and what we speak, because one would naturally expect a lawyer to be knowledgable and eloquent. What does it mean to be a hardworking student can very from person to person, and is considered a personal construct.

Another interesting aspect of cognitive schemata is how we have certain "scripts" in our mind. For example, how a break-up should occur and the series of events it should follow. We most probably form such templates from our television dramas and even experiences from our friends and ourselves.

Such cognitive schematas enable us to predict how certain situations may be and how certain people may behave. This prediction in turn affects how we behave these situations and helps us be more confident at the same time. However, such "default settings" may limit our perception as it may cause us to see/hear things that may not have actually happened. It may also affect our communication adversely if we tend to assign personal contructs and prototypes to people we meet.
There are of course many other factors that result in us having such differentiated perceptions among individuals. This perception changes how we view things/situations/environment: thus the derivation of the half full/empty glass analogy.
So whether you view a glass as being empty, full, or wondering where your cheeseburger went...how do you think perception is important to your communication?

We need communication now more than ever

Hey people!! This is my very first entry on this blog!! (: What better why to start than to talk about how communication has evolved from history till today!

Do you think that everyday, from the moment we open our eyes to the last person we wish "Goodnight", we are constantly in need for interpersonal communication?

As the comic strip above suggests (not limiting to long-distance communication only), even from the early times of cavemen and what-have-you, humans have been utilising whatever tools available to them to communicate ideas, theories or emotions to one another.

From the amount of tools available to us today for effective communication, i'm rather convinced humans cannot do without interpersonal communication. Simply because: No man is an island. We communicate because we need to survive on this place called earth.

People communicate for various reasons, of course. In earlier ages, tribal tongues, stone inscriptions and even tribal dance were all probably part of communicating a certain code of conduct being expected, ancient worship, and a way of living within the tribe/community. This of course developed further to the spoken and written languages that we use today, which has helped bridge the divide among groups and led the world to interact more closely and effectively with one another. The advent of techonology in communication tools only served to fuel the rapid fire in bringing people in closer contact with one another. Now we are no longer limited to our physical boundaries, but are able to interact and communicate (only with a split-second time lag) with people across the globe with the touch of a button.

Now, we would all think that since communication technology has advanced so successfully (and still is advancing at a rapid pace), people would spend less time and effort trying to communicate. But just look at the people of today! - Television, Internet Chatrooms and Forums, Blogs, MSN, YouTube, Facebook, Smartphones, SMS, Video Conferencing and the list is never-ending! It seems that people are trying all ways and means to be seen, to be heard, to constantly communicate at the first second thier ideas, opinions, or simply what they had for breakfast today.

How many of us feel comfortable in abandoning our handphones for just a day? Or how many are able to stay off the computer for a day or two? The most probable answer to either of the questions above is you can't! It seems that the need for communication in humans have spurred men to develop more effective means of communication, which again in turn has fuelled in us a more desperate want and need to interact with the world out there. Communication today has exceeded the basic needs of communicating for mere survival as compared to thousand of years ago; it has become a lifestyle to live up to, a way of life that has us constantly plugged in to the latest world news, our friend's birthday party, etc.

Our way of communication may have become less physical, but be it SMS-ing, video-conferencing, blogging or even a tribal dance, but it seems that humans now more than ever are hooked onto communicating with one another.