Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Factors Affecting Perception

Factors Affecting Perception

Perception is influenced by perceptual set, context, motivation, and emotion. Perceptual set, or perceptual expectancy, refers to the tendency to perceive things in a particular way, influenced by previous experiences and expectations. This phenomenon affects the interpretation of stimuli, creating a set of mental tendencies and assumptions that impact sensory perceptions of sound, taste, touch, and sight.
An illustrative example of a perceptual set is the scenario where an airline pilot told...

Perception

Perception

Perception is a fundamental psychological process that enables individuals to organize, interpret, and consciously experience sensory information. This process is crucial for understanding and interacting with the world around us. It includes both bottom-up and top-down processing, each playing a distinct role in how we perceive our environment.
Bottom-up processing begins at the sensory level, where receptors detect external environmental stimuli. These could include the tactile sensation of...

Subliminal Perception

Subliminal Perception

Subliminal perception refers to the processing of sensory information that occurs below the level of conscious awareness. Researchers study subliminal perception by presenting a stimulus, such as a word or image, very quickly, typically around 50 milliseconds. This rapid presentation is often followed by another stimulus, such as a pattern of dots or lines, which blocks further mental processing of the initial stimulus. As a result, if participants cannot identify the initial stimulus better...

Introducing Social Perception

Introducing Social Perception

Perceiving others accurately is fundamental to effective communication and relationship-building. Social perception, a key concept in social psychology, refers to the cognitive processes through which individuals gather and interpret information about others to understand their actions, intentions, and motivations. This process extends beyond spoken words and overt behaviors, incorporating subtle nonverbal cues and contextual factors.Nonverbal Cues and Their SignificanceNonverbal cues play a...

Extrasensory Perception

Extrasensory Perception

Extrasensory perception, or ESP, suggests the ability to perceive events beyond the conventional senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Parapsychologists, who research ESP and related psychic phenomena, categorize ESP into three main types: precognition, telepathy, and clairvoyance.
Precognition involves foreseeing future events, such as predicting an accident before it happens. An example of precognition could be someone dreaming about a specific event, like a car crash, which then occurs...

Self-Awareness and Its Effects

Self-Awareness and Its Effects

Self-awareness is a psychological state in which the individual becomes the focal point of their attention. This inward focus transforms the self into an object of contemplation and assessment, influencing how individuals perceive their actions and their alignment with personal and societal standards.Triggers and Contexts for Self-AwarenessSelf-awareness can be activated by external stimuli that make individuals visually or audibly aware of themselves, such as mirrors, cameras, or recordings.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

A reporting checklist for large language models in behavioural science.

Nature human behaviour·2026

Same author

Liberals and Conservatives See Different Victims: Moral Disagreement Is Explained by Different Assumptions of Vulnerability.

Personality & social psychology bulletin·2026

Same author

Fleeting generalization: How unstable belief updating keeps people overly pessimistic about talking to strangers.

Journal of personality and social psychology·2026

Same author

Health Behaviors Are Moralized When Perceived to Cause Harm.

Personality & social psychology bulletin·2025

Same author

Poets Over Quants: Automation and AI Threats Increase the Value People Place on Creativity.

Personality & social psychology bulletin·2025

Same author

A large-scale investigation of everyday moral dilemmas.

PNAS nexus·2025

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 11, 2026

Detecting Pre-Stimulus Source-Level Effects on Object Perception with Magnetoencephalography

Detecting Pre-Stimulus Source-Level Effects on Object Perception with Magnetoencephalography

Published on: July 26, 2019

Causes and consequences of mind perception.

Adam Waytz¹, Kurt Gray, Nicholas Epley

¹Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Northwest Science Building Ste. 290, 52 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. waytz@wjh.harvard.edu

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

|June 29, 2010

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

People often perceive minds in others, but not always. Mind perception, influenced by social needs and self-similarity, impacts moral rights and action meaningfulness, highlighting its social cognitive importance.

More Related Videos

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Published on: March 1, 2017

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Published on: November 2, 2012

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 11, 2026

Detecting Pre-Stimulus Source-Level Effects on Object Perception with Magnetoencephalography

Detecting Pre-Stimulus Source-Level Effects on Object Perception with Magnetoencephalography

Published on: July 26, 2019

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Published on: March 1, 2017

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning

Published on: November 2, 2012

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Social Psychology
Neuroscience

Background:

Mind perception is fundamental to social interaction.
Humans do not consistently attribute minds, sometimes attributing them to non-human entities like deities or objects.
Understanding the conditions and implications of mind perception is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

To review the factors influencing mind perception.
To examine the consequences of attributing minds.
To elucidate the importance of mind perception in social cognition.

Main Methods:

Literature review of studies on mind perception.
Analysis of psychological and social factors affecting mind attribution.
Examination of the effects of mind perception on moral and behavioral judgments.

Main Results:

Mind perception is triggered by perceiver needs (e.g., social connection) and perceived characteristics (e.g., self-similarity).
Attributing minds to entities grants them moral consideration and imbues their actions with meaning.
The tendency to perceive minds varies based on internal and external factors.

Conclusions:

Mind perception is a flexible cognitive skill with significant social implications.
Understanding the drivers and outcomes of mind perception clarifies its role in social life.
This cognitive process shapes how we interact with and evaluate others and non-human entities.