Perception, whether right or wrong, can be everything in beliefs and decisions. These articles show this, and so do many personal experiences throughout life. How a person looks can affect how people react to that person, whether that perception is right or wrong. For example, one person might view another person with a large amount of tattoos as frightening or "tough," while another might not see that at all. Neither of these perceptions probably has anything to do with the person themselves, they are simply perceptions people build up about how people look or things appear. That is the trouble with perceptions – often they have nothing to do with reality.
             A good example of this comes in "The Cadaver Who Joined the Army" by Mary Roach. Relatives who donate their deceased loved ones to science perceive their bodies will be used for scientific purposes and to help others, when in reality, they can end up as targets for any number of ballistic experiments. Roach notes of one group of cadavers who tested the durability of boots in land mine situations. She writes, "The bodies were posed in standard walking position, heel to the ground, as though striding confidently to their doom" (Roach 150). The family and loved ones certainly never perceived what would happen to their donations, their perception told them something good must come of their good deed. It seems impossible to believe that anyone could imagine what would happen to these cadavers, and so, their perception of medical research and donating their loved ones was far from the reality of the situation. Is that ethical? No, it does not seem to be ethical, and yet, things like this happen all the time in society. Some people perceive them as terrible, other people are not bothered, and that is another problem with perception – it is not the same for every person or every situation.
             Language has a major impact on perception and beliefs, as these essays ...