CULTURAL INFLUENCE OF PERCEPTION
Although our physical makeup and social roles affect the way we perceive external
stimuli, both are essentially conditioned by our culture. As mentioned previously, a
person’s culture has a strong impact on the perception process. Culture not only
provides the foundation for the meanings we give to our perceptions, it also directs
us to word specific kinds of messages and events. Bagby (1957) best describes the
influence of culture on our perception. In the study, a dozen of participants from the
United States and Mexico were asked to view separately ten pairs of photographs in