Our visual perception definitely goes beyond the physical information
available to us; this phenomenon is commonly referred to as “optical
illusions.” Artists and designers of everything from apparel to cars to
home interiors make use of optical illusions to enhance the look of the
product. Managers rely on their visual perception to form their
opinions about people and objects around them and to make sense of
data presented in graphical form. Therefore, understanding how our
visual perception may be biased is important.
First, we extrapolate from the information available to us. Take a look
at the first figure. The white triangle you see in the middle is not
really there, but we extrapolate from the information available to us
and see it there. Similarly, when we look at objects that are partially
blocked, we see the whole.