Perceptual Set Theory

Perceptual set theory stresses the idea of perception as an active process involving selection, inference and interpretation. Perceptual set is a bias or readiness to perceive  certain aspects of available sensory data and to ignore others.

Set can be influenced by Expectation and Context

Minturn and Bruner(1951) showed the middle figure would be more likely to be perceived as a letter if presented amongst other letters and a number if presented amongst other numbers

                     12

               A    3   C

                    14