When I look at the photograph of you two young ladies, I immediately perceive of you as friendly and happy persons. Of course, I do not know whether you are or not, but that is my PERCEPTION. Some people dress a certain way because they want people to have a certain perception of them. If you are a successful business person, then you dress in a way that tells the world who you are; if you are a young gang leader, you dress in a way to scare other people. As you know, some young people get tattoos. But then when they want to get a good job, some managers perceive them (because of their tattoos) to be irresponsible people. So that is why some people later get their tattoos removed. There is a saying: You cannot judge a book by its cover. But it seems to me that it is natural to do so. The way you dress and speak and act makes people perceive you in a certain way.

Wow, this is a good question. Basically, "how do people perceive you?" can also be written as "how do people see you?". It is a way of asking how you think other people view you (personality wise, physically, etc). Do other people think that you are smart? Do they think that you are pretty? Do they think that you look older than you really are? If someone asks you that question a way to respond would be something like: "People perceive me as an intelligent person who is easy to talk to" or "people perceive me as rude and inconsiderate, but actually I'm just shy."

"how do people ''perceive'' you?", such a nice argument! Without any intention to utilize terminology from psychology I'd briefly say that it means "what do people think of you, what is the lasting impression that somebody has following the initial interaction with you". What will someone think about you, how would somebody "characterize" you following an interaction/communication of, let's say, 10 minutes. As the fellow italki members suggest, there are many factors which may influence someone's perception of another individual, as clothing, voice quality etc. There are also factors, variables, which influence our own ability to perceive another. No two or more individuals can ever have an identical impression following the introduction to some certain person. People perceive others according to their own experience, knowledge and ideals. And in order to make this a little clearer I would allow myself a comparison of the human to an animal. A cat which is being introduced to a human will not account the fact that the human is literate since cats are not capable of grammar and literacy. A cat or a dog wouldn't account for the fact that a person has musical education, similarly, because musical skills are very primitively developed in cats in comparison to the musical skills that the average human possesses. Where as, a bird would be intrigued by a human whistling a sweet melody and account for him/her differently than for another who doesn't spell out melodic patterns. In other terms, people can hardly perceive much higher than their own ability and ideals.

Thank you very much Brackforce, James & Manos for your clear & useful explanation! It is very precious!.. I was really hesitant which best answer I should choose....Thank you again !