AP PSYCHOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -What is perceptual set? The perceptual set definition is “a predisposition to perceive or notice some aspects of the available sensory data and ignore others.” In other words, it’s a cognitive bias that affects the way people interpret things based on their expectations and past experiences.

Detailed explanation-2: -Perceptual set refers to the influence of cognitive and motivational state on perception. For example, psychological experiments demonstrate that an expected stimulus is perceived at a lower threshold than an unexpected stimulus.

Detailed explanation-3: -Perceptual expectations are expressed by the selective activation of relevant populations within brain regions that encode the target.

Detailed explanation-4: -Influences on Top-Down Processing According to Gregory (1970) different factors can influence top-down processing such as expectations, emotion, motivation and culture. This is known as perceptual set theory.