Final answer:
It is true that our past experiences and expectations influence our perception. This is due to the perceptual set formed from our experiences and biases, as well as cultural influences on perception. Perception incorporates both bottom-up and top-down processing.
Step-by-step explanation:
The statement that our past experiences and expectations affect the way we perceive things is true. Our perceptions are influenced by a variety of factors including our personalities, experiences, expectations, and perceptual hypotheses. These factors come together to form our perceptual set, which can bias our interpretation of sensory information. An example of this is how verbal priming can lead to different perceptions of ambiguous figures. Additionally, cultural influences can also shape how we experience visual illusions like the Müller-Lyer illusion, with Westerners having a greater propensity to see the illusion compared to those from non-Western cultures.
Our beliefs, personal experiences, and even socio-economic status can further modify how we perceive and interact with the world. Marshall Segall and colleagues demonstrated cultural variance in experiencing certain visual illusions, and this is a clear example of how culture affects perception. Perception involves both bottom-up processing, which is driven by sensory input, and top-down processing, which is influenced by our knowledge and expectations.