Creatively Playful Perception
Because of your ability to go beyond the sensory gifts that evolution has
bestowed on the human species, you can become more creative in the way you
perceive the world. Your role model is not a perfectly programmed compu-
terized robot with exceptional sensory acuity. Instead, it is a great artist like
Pablo Picasso. Picasso’s genius was, in part, attributable to his enormous talent
for ‘‘playful perception.’’ This artist could free himself from the bonds of per-
ceptual and mental sets to see not the old in the new but the new in the old, the
novel in the familiar, and the unusual figure concealed within the familiar
ground.
Perceptual creativity involves experiencing the world in ways that are imag-
inative, personally enriching, and fun (Leff, 1984). You can accomplish percep-
tual creativity by consciously directing your attention and full awareness to the
objects and activities around you. Your goal should be to become more flexible
in what you allow yourself to perceive and think, remaining open to alternative
responses to situations.
We can think of no better way to conclude this formal presentation of the
psychology of perception than by proposing ten suggestions for playfully en-
hancing your powers of perception:
.Imagine that everyone you meet is really a machine designed to look
humanoid, and all machines are really people designed to look inanimate..Notice all wholes as ready to come apart into separately functioning
pieces that can make it on their own..Imagine that your mental clock is hooked up to a video recorder that
can rewind, fast-forward, and freeze time..Recognize that most objects around you have a ‘‘family resemblance’’ to
other objects..View the world as if you were an animal or a home appliance.
.Consider one new use for each object you view (use a tennis racket to
drain cooked spaghetti)..Suspend the law of causality so that events just happen, while coinci-
dence and chance rule over causes and effects..Dream up alternative meanings for the objects and events in your life.
.Discover something really interesting about activities and people you
used to find boring..Violate some of the assumptions that you and others have about what
you would and wouldn’t do (without engaging in a dangerous activity).Final Lessons
The important lesson to be learned from the study of perception is that a per-
ceptual experience in response to a stimulus event is a response of the whole
person. In addition to the information provided when your sensory receptors
are stimulated, your final perception depends on who you are, whom you are
with,andwhatyouexpect,want,andvalue.Aperceiveroftenplaystwodif-
ferentrolesthatwecancomparetogamblingandinteriordesign.Asagam-
bler, a perceiver is willing to bet that the present input can be understood in
terms of past knowledge and personal theories. As a compulsive interior deco-
184 Philip G. Zimbardo and Richard J. Gerrig