Perception In Night Shymalana's The Sixth Sense

In Night Shymalana’s The Sixth Sense, Cole Sear makes the statement, “They only see what they want to see.” This seemingly simplistic phrase directly parallels the various ways in which we perceive others and the world around us. Cole Sear, a young boy who claims to see the dead, tells us that the dead only see what they want to see. By this, he means that the deceased forge an alternate universe that ultimately allows them to perceive the world as they wish—a world in which they are still alive. Similarly, humans perceive the world as it is, with little bias. However, our beliefs and prejudices can affect what we “choose” to see, particularly when it comes to our perception of other people. In Sixth Sense, we see Cole Sear’s own personal …show more content…
In order to judge whether or not we care for someone else, we rely on two things: experience and observation. The difficulty here, is that our perception of others can vary under certain circumstances: emotional attachment, misguided information, ect… Hermann Von Helmholtz, a physician and physicist, describes visual perception as “unconscious inferences from sensory data and knowledge derived from our past.” Our views vary on a day-to-day basis, and so in this case, we are able to “see what we want to see”. The way we feel towards others is often dependent on our own personal experiences. We can either choose to adore the wonderful qualities a person attains, or dwell on the bad ones. This concept traces back to Von Helmonholtz theory of perception; as humans, we built off each experience and use information and knowledge to develop an opinion towards someone or something. Similarly, we often have a pre-determined assumption towards someone. We can use public information or any given background to evaluate another individual. This pre assumption proves that we see what we want to see in others, while completely disregarding any fact or truth behind the