Perception of Technical Risks

Health risks are front-page news. Be it BSE, surface ozone or radiation from transmitter stations ofr mobile phones, the popular press puts out a constant stream of risk warnings and all-clear reports. This chapter looks at how the general public perceives and assesses such information. Although limited empirical data is available on the subject, it will focus on perception of combined risks. The term perception as used in cognitive psychology applies to the mental processes through which a person takes in, deals with and assesses information from the environment (physical and communicative) via the senses1.