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Two friends
were sitting around talking. They were
discussing how misinterpretation and
misperception meant the same thing.
Their conclusion was that both words
were an inaccurate representation of
reality and that they were different
names for the same phenomenon.
Meanwhile, their mentor approached. He
was an older gentleman, someone both
friends deeply admired and respected.
They asked him to join in their
discussion. Feeling proud of their
conversation and their conclusions, they
eagerly shared them with their mentor.
He complimented them both on their
conclusions.
Then the mentor put to them the
“question” that was equally important to
understand. “What is the difference
between the two that makes them
different concepts—even though they lead
to the same result?”
One of the friends responded, “They are
the very same concept.”
“No, I don’t think they are…for one
thing, one is from the outside and the
other is from the inside,” replied the
mentor.
“Could you please explain what you are
saying?”
“Misperception, at its root means,
perceive, which assumes one is looking
at, or observing something. Like a magic
trick, you can perceive something as
looking one way, but at the heart of it,
there’s something else operating
altogether. This happens because of how
a thing is portrayed or represented.
This process happens outside of you, and
is processed based upon the outside
events.
Misinterpretation at its root means,
interpret, which is the act of
interpretation—which is to understand
the meaning or intent of something. So,
misinterpretation is to interpret
wrongly—or to inaccurately decipher a
message. This happens on the inside,
based on how information is processed in
which a sort of distortion occurs..”
“So, then is it possible for both of
these to be at work at the same time?”
asked the friends.
“Yes, and again, a good example is
magic. The illusionist or magician
understands our perceptual blind spots
and incorporates them when devising his
illusion. So, outwardly, we are
intentionally deceived by tricks of the
trade, like slight-of-hand maneuvers. At
the same time our internal processing
relies on the same blind spots to
interpret what is happening, and we
misread the reality of what is actually
occurring. The illusionist relies on
misperception and misinterpretation to
create the illusion which would be
impossible if these ingredients were
absent.
“Wow,” exclaimed the friends, “now we
understand why our conclusion was
accurate, but our understanding of the
differences between misperception and
misinterpretation was flawed, because
they are indeed, individually, two very
different concepts.
V.P. Mosser
©2001-2008 V.P. Mosser
You're welcome to use this article in
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Successful entrepreneur, V.P. Mosser is
the creator of the Learn the Lessons
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and numerous thought-provoking articles.
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