Perception is how you understand and interpret what you experience through your senses: what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. Your brain takes in information from the world around you and makes sense of it.

When you look at clouds, your perception might tell you one looks like a dragon while your friend sees a ship. You're both looking at the same cloud, but you perceive it differently. A dog whistle makes a sound too high-pitched for human perception, but dogs hear it clearly. When you walk into a room that smells like fresh cookies, your perception of that smell might make you feel happy and hungry.

Perception also means the way you think about or judge something. If a student has the perception that math is boring, they approach it with that mindset, even though math might actually be interesting. Your perception of a new classmate might change completely after you get to know them better.

Your perceptions shape how you see the world, but they're not always accurate. Two people can have very different perceptions of the same event: one student might perceive a substitute teacher as strict while another sees them as fair. What you perceive depends partly on what's actually there and partly on your own experiences, expectations, and what you pay attention to.