Socio-cultural factors play a significant role in shaping our perceptions. Psychologists have studied whether perceptual processes are universal or vary across different cultural settings. Since people living in different parts of the world look different, many psychologists believe their ways of perceiving the world must also differ in some respects.

The perceiver plays a key role in the process of perception. People process and interpret stimuli in their own ways depending on their personal, social and cultural conditions. Due to these factors, our perceptions are not only finely tuned but also modified.

Different experiences and learning opportunities available to people in different cultural settings influence their perception. For example, people coming from a pictureless environment fail to recognise objects in pictures. Hudson studied the perception of pictures by African subjects and noted several difficulties. Many of them were unable to identify objects depicted in pictures (e.g., antelope, spear) and also failed to perceive distance in pictures.

Similarly, Eskimos have been found to make fine distinctions among a variety of snow that others may be unable to notice. Some aboriginal groups of the Siberian region can differentiate among dozens of skin colours of reindeers, which most people would not be able to do.

Thus, socio-cultural factors influence our perceptions by generating differential familiarity with and salience of stimuli as well as certain habits of perceptual inference among people. While some illusions are universal, others are more personal and culture-specific.