A number of studies was conducted in the late 1940s and 1950s to show the impact of motives and needs on perception. Despite methodological imitations and inconsistencies, most of those studies point to the fact that our perception is largely guided by our immediate needs and motives. We attend to and organize our sensory inputs in a manner that match our needs. These studies in general maintain that people who are hungry, thirsty or sexually aroused are likely to pay attention to events in the environment, which will satisfy their needs. This viewpoint was known as the “new look” in perception.
In a classic experiment, Bruner and Goodman (1947) demonstrated the effect of economic deprivation on perception. They investigated the hypothesis that the perceived size of a valued object would be greater than that of a neutral object of equal physical size.
To test their hypothesis, they took 10-year-old children to judge the size of various coins. One group of children was taken from low socio-economic status, while the other group of children was taken from high socio-economic status. The apparatus consisted of a wooden box with a screen at one end and a knob at the lower right hand corner. By turning the knob, the children could vary the diameter of the circle of light shining on the screen. The children were asked to match the size of the circle of light to the size of various denominations. The children of the poor socioeconomic status group were found to overestimate the size of coins to a much greater extent than the children of the high socio-economic group. The investigators explained that poor children were in need of money, and were therefore, more motivated as a result of which they overestimated the size of the coins as compared to the rich children. In other words, their needs and motives influenced their perceptual organizations.
Ashley, Harper, and Runyon (1951) manipulated the value variable experimentally. Instead of taking poor and rich children, they hypnotized the subjects. One group of subjects was suggested as rich and the second group as poor. A third group of subjects remained as the neutral subjects. Subjects were asked to judge the size of coins. In general, the subjects while in the poor state over-estimated the size of the coins and the subjects suggested as rich underestimated the size of coins.
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In an experiment, Sanford (1936) showed that hungry subjects completed word stems in such a way as to make more food related words than did the non-hungry subjects. For example, the word stem ME was more likely to be completed as MEAT or MEAL by hungry subjects than non-hungry subjects were.
Levine et al (1942) presented ambiguous drawings behind a glass-screen to hungry and non-hungry college students. When asked to report what they perceived in the drawings, the hungry college students frequently perceived food objects in the drawings, while the non-hungry students reported perceiving several other things. There are also other studies, which show that our perception is strongly influenced by our immediate biological needs and motives.
The projective tests like the Word Association Test and the Rorschach Inkblot Test are constructed with a mind to uncover the needs and motives of he individual that underlie his manifested behavior. The pictures are ambiguous, and the individual’s needs and motives mostly influence his perception and interpretation of the pictures. By analyzing his interpretations, a psychologist would be able to make inferences about the needs and motives of the individual.
All the evidences cited above lend credence to the theory that needs and motives play an important role in organizing our perception. For a psychologist, the message is clear. While evaluating the statements of individuals about certain events and phenomena, a psychologist should take into account the needs and motives of the perceiver, which would help him in making a proper assessment of the situation.