Perspective and Perception

How are they different? PERSPECTIVE: the way/angle/side you look from – it’s your point of view. PERCEPTION: your understanding/ interpretation of people, situations and the world – it’s your mental impression.

Here you may either see BEAUTY or UGLINESS

How can people be looking at the SAME thing but see it DIFFERENTLY

Perception and perspective is affected by YOU… -Your mood -Your interests -Your experiences -Previous beliefs, generalizations, stereotypes -Your fears, flaws, insecurities -What motivates you (values)

What did you focus on first? If explaining this picture to someone else – what 3 things would you focus on? ** what might this reveal about you **

What is the most memorable part of this picture?

In one word how would you describe this picture?

Look at the value of TIME from different people’s perspective… To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who has failed a grade. To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby. To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask an editor of a weekly newspaper. To realize the value of ONE DAY, ask a daily wage laborer who has kids to feed. To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the bride who is waiting to meet her groom. To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who has missed the train. To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who has avoided an accident. To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.

If EVERYONE sees people, situations, the world DIFFERENTLY… Is this a good / bad thing? Is what we read /see true? Are there any actual “facts”? What factors shape our perceptions of the world? How does perception/perspective affect everything we know or learn?

Do TEENS see things differently? We used to think that teens respond differently to the world because of hormones, or attitude, or because they simply need independence. But when adolescents' brains are studied through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we see that they actually work differently than adult brains.

Many teen subjects failed to interpret the emotion in faces like this one as fear. The adults correctly identified the expression as fear. Yet the teens answered "shocked, surprised, angry." And the teens and adults used different parts of their brains to process what they were feeling. The teens mostly used the amygdala, (uh-mig-duh-luh) a small almond shaped region that guides instinctual or "gut“ reactions, while the adults relied on the frontal cortex, which governs reason and planning.

Amygdala vs Frontal Cortex When reading emotion, teens (left) rely more on the amygdala, while adults (right) rely more on the frontal cortex.

How might a TEEN and an ADULT perspective on this photo be different?

Due to this, in Social Studies people must develop a “Critical Perspective” This means… -questioning what you read -looking for more information -cross – checking facts -looking for bias, one-sided arguments

What would your “critical perspective” be on this drawing?

To sum up… You can spend your time arguing over who is more right or wrong OR You can spend your time explaining your view to others and also trying to see things from other perspectives