topThe Role of Experience | Sex and Age | Cultural Influences
Experience in interacting with the world is vital to perception. Without visual experience, the visual system does not develop properly as can be demonstrated with people who were blind for a long time and then had their vision restored late in life. When their vision was restored, they were often confused by visual input and were unable to see the world accurately.
It is difficult to assess the degree to which differences related to the sex of the perceiver are biologically based or are the cultural product of traditional differences in sex role. Biological sex and sex role thus far have been hopelessly confounded in experiments with human subjects. Nevertheless, both age and sex are found to be implicated in these differences in perceptual style. Specifically, field dependence declines with increasing age, as does the closely related susceptibility to optical illusions.
Beyond sex differences in perceiving that seem to be culturally imposed, there is evidence for more general cultural influences on perception. The burden of much research is to show that the type of physical environment people construct for themselves or choose to inhabit can influence their style of perceiving.