. Perception is the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting information inputs to produce meaning.
- a) Information inputsare sensations received through sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch.
- b) Perception is highly complex, leading markets to increasingly take a multi-sensory approach.
- Perception is a three-step process.
- a) Although we receive numerous pieces of information at once, only a few reach our awareness.
(1) Only a few pieces of information reach our awareness through a process called selective exposure, in which an individual selects which inputs will reach awareness. A person’s current set of needs affects selective exposure, with preference given to one’s strongest needs.
(2) The selective nature of perception may result in two other phenomena: selective distortion and selective retention.
(3) Selective distortion is changing or twisting currently received information; it occurs when a person receives information inconsistent with personal feelings or beliefs.
(4) In selective retention, a person remembers information inputs that support personal feelings and beliefs and forgets inputs that do not.
- b) Perceptual organization is the second step in the perception process. Information inputs that reach awareness must be organized by the brain in such a way as to produce meaning. An individual mentally organizes and integrate new information with what is already stored in memory.
(1) “Closure” is an organizational method in which a persona mentally fills in information gaps to make a pattern or statement.
- c) Interpretation, the third step in the perceptual process, is the assignment of meaning to what has been organized. A person bases interpretation on what he or she expects or what is familiar.
- Marketers cannot control buyers’ perceptions, but they try to influence them through information. This approach is problematic.
- a) A consumer’s perceptual process may operate so that a seller’s information never reaches awareness.
- b) A buyer may receive a seller’s information but perceives it differently than intended.
- c) A buyer may perceive information inputs to be inconsistent with prior beliefs and therefore are likely to forget the information quickly (selective retention).
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