Perception

Perception is just one step in the entire process by which people become informed about alternative consumer goods. It is a very important step, but it has to be considered in context with the process. The consumer information process starts when consumers selectively expose themselves to some source of stimulation. Watching television, going to the supermarket, and driving past a particular billboard, are all examples. In order to start the process, marketers either have to attract the consumer to the source or else put the source directly in the path of the shoppers in a target area. This involves selection of the most effective advertising media and distribution outlets that will reach consumers in specific areas.

Perception also involves some form of energy to stimulate the senses: light, sound, pressure, or chemicals that are inhaled or ingested. If the energy reaching the eyes, ears, skin, nose, or mouth of the receiver is in the right form and within the correct range of intensity, then it creates stimulation. Marketers do not have direct control over any of the steps that follow in the consumer information process. The only things they can control are media for transmitting the messages and the characteristics of the stimuli themselves.

Stimuli can be adjusted and modified so they affect consumers in different ways. Manipulating the stimuli to which prospective buyers will be exposed indirectly controls what a person will experience and what will result during later steps in the consumer information process. To do that effectively, marketers have to understand something about the way the stimuli are processed at later phases. If we know how certain stimuli affect the later steps in the process, there is a chance that we can get the message all the way through in the form we want it to take.

Here are some informative and interesting websites about perception:

Is perception the leading edge of memory?
Here's an interesting site about perception and illusion.
An informative site about psychological investigations of unconscious perception.
A great site about the Exploratorium, which is the museum of science, art and human perception.