Perception is guided not simply by factors intrinsic to the person; the socio- cultural environment also has a role to play. The culture consists of the whole range of experiences during the process of socialization. The physical as well as the cultural climate shape person’s belief system, attitudes, and orienting dispositions to the environment. The same stimulus event is likely to be interpreted differently by different cultural groups. Cultures prepare the individuals to see, feel, act, and behave in a particular way. A person with a set of personality traits may be respected in the Indian culture, while the same individual may be judged as abnormal in the western culture. Old people may be considered as wise individuals in one culture, and as less useful members in another culture.

Cross-cultural psychologists have argued that people in different cultures around the world have different everyday experiences, and as such, they differ in their perception of some objects and events. In 1966, Segall and his associates reported a series of studies showing that culture plays a significant ole in shaping responses to visual illusions. The cultural groups displayed illusory effects in accordance with their cultural background. The Africans living in dense jungles showed greater illusions in vertical-horizontal figure, while the western people displayed greater Muller-Lyre illusion. These differences are explained with reference to their past cultural learning.

Hudson (1958) did the first systematic work on pictorial perception to show how it is influenced by cultural factors. He discovered that his subjects interpreted the pictures in the Thematic Apperception Test as if they lacked the ability to perceive the pictorial depth, i.e., the ability to see that a picture represents an array of three-dimensional objects distributed in space. Later, reviewing a series of cross-cultural studies, Deregowski (1972) maintained that perceiving perspective drawings is a specific cultural skill that is learned rather than automatic.

For example, Holmes (1963) and Shaw (1969) observed in Kenya that subjects sometimes perceived the picture of a tortoise as a snake because of the shape of its head and neck; sometimes as an elephant because of the shape of its feet; and occasionally as a crocodile because of the pattern of its shells on the body. To an Indian or a European, such type of perception of a tortoise by a Kenyan will certainly appear strange. To a European or American, kissing in public is perceived as a normal form of behavior but to an Indian it is perceived as uncommon and unusual.

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Broota and Ganguli (1974) observed that Indian children tend to perceive those aspects of the stimulus situation, which are associated with punishment. On the contrary, the American children respond to stimulus events, which are associated with reward. The cultural difference comes about because of differential child-rearing practices.

In view of the above facts and experimental findings it is reasonable to say that individuals with different cultural experiences differ with regard to their perception. The same situation may be perceived differently in different cultures and in the same culture as differently in different times. In other words, it is justified to propose that sometimes we perceive things as we are but not as the things are.