It’s easy to assume that we generally see the world as it is. Yet, decades of research show that this really isn’t the case at all. We’re exposed to an immense amount of information every minute, far too much for our brains to process consciously. This includes sensory input (taste, touch, sight, smell, and sound) from the world around us, plus internal signals related to physical states, emotions, and thoughts.
It would be incredibly impractical and inefficient to try to process all this information. We’d be constantly processing and never responding. We also have limited processing capacity, so dealing with everything wouldn’t be possible anyway.
To work with these factors, our brains rely on filtering mechanisms to prioritize information and determine what’s relevant to our needs and survival. There are conscious and unconscious aspects to this process, which work together to determine how we see the world.
This topic has been extensively discussed and researched. While there will always be questions and debates, many fundamental processes and their implications are well-understood.
Today, we’re looking at the basics of how our brains shape our view of the world, and what this means for us. Any one of these areas could be a book chapter or more in its own right and you may want to dig into some in more depth.
Still… when it comes to understanding what to do next, sometimes the basics are more than enough.
Filtering Mechanisms
This list highlights some of the most significant filtering mechanisms at play, some of which may be familiar.
- Attention. We can consciously focus on a particular part of the room, an event, or our internal experiences. Doing so naturally tunes out other inputs, potentially making us less aware of what else is occurring.
- Relevance. We consciously and unconsciously filter information based on relevance to current needs and goals. For example, if you’re socially anxious, you may pay close attention to non-verbal cues from the people you’re interacting with. If you’re confident, some of the same cues may go unnoticed, leading to different perceptions of the same event.
- Salience. Some things draw our attention, like a sudden loud noise, a flash of bright colors, or something entirely new. But, when those same noises or colors occur regularly, there isn’t the same salience effect and we can somewhat tune them out.
- Past Experiences. Historic lessons can have huge impacts on the present, including impacts on how our brains filter information. For example, a negative social experience could make you more sensitive to internal cues in a similar situation, while a negative experience with a particular food could make you more aware of its smell.
- Expectations. What we expect matters too. For example, if you’re expecting a phone call, you’re more likely to notice when your phone vibrates. Similarly, if you’re expecting something to go wrong, your brain will automatically focus on any signals that suggest a problem, potentially ignoring some contradictory ones in the process.
- Emotional State. Have you ever noticed this? When you’re anxious or scared, you’re aware of more danger signals in the environment, but when you feel good, everything seems safer and more positive.
Cognitive Shortcuts
Cognitive shortcuts are another crucial aspect of information processing. They’re ways of decreasing cognitive load by relying on mental rules, known as heuristics. These heuristics allow us to quickly come to a conclusion about a situation, without the need for close consideration.
The process is valuable, as we don’t have the time or mental capacity to fully examine every decision or situation. However, these shortcuts rely on assumptions and incomplete information, so they can be extremely inaccurate.
- Availability Heuristic. We often judge how likely an event is to happen based on how many examples come to mind. For example, plane crashes and celebrity scandals receive considerable media attention, so we can imagine they’re more common than they actually are.
- Belief Perseverance. The tendency to hold onto previous beliefs, even when faced with contradictory information.
- Confirmation Bias. This refers to how we seek out, favor, and recall information that supports previous beliefs, while doing the opposite for anything contradictory. This includes using news sources that align with our perspectives and discussing politics with people who already agree with us. Doing so can also create an echo chamber effect, which promotes current opinions while discouraging critical thinking.
- Anchoring Bias. This refers to how we often give the most weight to the first piece of information we receive, regardless of the quality of information.
- Fundamental Attribution Bias. We often naturally overemphasize internal factors (e.g., personality) over external factors (e.g., environment and chance) when talking about other people, while doing the opposite with ourselves. For example, you might consider an unemployed person lazy, but if you later become unemployed, you’re likely to see it as a result of circumstance.
- In-Group Bias. We tend to favor people and the perspectives of people who are within our in-group (the groups we identify with) over those who are not.
If any of these sound familiar, don’t worry, these shortcuts are part of how our minds work. Becoming more aware of them can help you identify when the information mightn’t be accurate and help you think critically.
Memories
Perhaps not surprisingly, memories aren’t all that trustworthy either. They’re best seen as an active reconstruction of the past, rather than precisely what happened. This process is influenced by various filters and shortcuts, much like what happens with perception and cognition.
Existing knowledge, expectations, and beliefs are all highly relevant here.
What’s more, when we recall memories, we can even fill in the gaps with information that seems consistent, even if the added details don’t match the original event. Things we learn after an event can impact what we remember as well and the altered memory feels just as true as it did beforehand.
There are other factors at play as well.
- Emotional state memory coding and retrieval. For example, if we’re in an emotionally aroused state, like fear or excitement, we tend to encode the details most relevant to our goals and those that are emotionally charged. Other times, the memories we form may be quite different.
- Stress plays a role too. For a short time, stress can help memories to form and be retrieved, but longer periods of stress can have the opposite effect. You might also have less ability to remember the things that aren’t related to the stress at hand.
- Confirmation bias and availability bias are relevant with memories too. So, we’re more likely to remember things that match our current beliefs and we’re likely to think that something easily recalled is more frequent or important than something less easily recalled.
These effects aren’t something we can spot or actively prevent. They’re simply a part of how our brains deal with such a large amount of information. After all, we couldn’t possibly remember every event that we ever experienced, much less details we didn’t notice at the time.
Narratives and Meaning Making
Even with filtering and cognitive shortcuts, we receive an extreme amount of information over time. To organize and work with all the information, we need some type of organizational structure – narratives.
Narratives are basically the stories we tell ourselves about events, other people, and ourselves. They’re how we weave all of this information to make something cohesive that we can work with.
Of course, the limitations present in perception and cognition bleed through into narratives as well, making them an inaccurate picture of the world. Similar effects work in the other direction too, where our filters and cognitive shortcuts are influenced by our narratives, making us even more likely to see things that reinforce our current views.
Implications
Perception, cognitive shortcuts, biases in memory formation, and the narratives we create all point to a crucial idea – that our view of the world is highly subjective and based on incomplete information.
But, it doesn’t feel like that. Our perspectives of the world tend to feel real instead, particularly when we’re in the middle of an argument and are convinced that the other person is wrong.
This is a huge issue when we act without question.
Still, we can do things differently. We can choose to hold stories and perspectives lightly, to recognize that we don’t have all the information and that there are other potential interpretations.
We can be curious too, where we seek to understand what other people think and feel. Doing so can lead to better and more meaningful relationships, while improving our ability to deal with conflict.
This type of curiosity is relevant to the stories we hold about ourselves as well. We are the most open to change when we recognize that our views about our strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities are based on how our minds process information. We can’t stop our minds from creating narratives, but we can be more conscious about the process and focus on stories that empower rather than diminish.
Final Thoughts
This post is an extremely short introduction to a detailed and complex topic, one that continues to be actively researched. If you want to know more, look for books, academic research papers, or even psychology textbooks. There’s no shortage of information out there, including plenty of elements that we haven’t considered here at all.
Yet, the information we’ve discussed may be all you need to know for practical purposes. It’s enough to show that none of us sees things precisely as they are, creating the chance for more connection, compassion, and curiosity.
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