Social perception is that part of perception that allows people to understand the other people in their social world.

This sort of perception is defined as a social cognitionwhich is the ability of the brain to store and process information. [1] Social perception allows individuals to make judgments and impressions about other people. It is primarily based on observation, although pre-existing knowledge influences how we perceive an observation. Social perception gives individuals the tools to recognize how others affect their personal lives. They help individuals to form impressions of others by providing the necessary information about how people usually behave across situations. One proposal to explain how social perceptions provides information needed for impression formation is by approaching the behavior with an implicit personality theory outlook. Implicit personality theories state that if an individual observes certain traits in another person, s/he tends to assume that his or her other personality traits are concurrent with the initial trait. These assumptions help us to make quick judgments about the character of an individual. It also helps us to "categorize" people so that we can infer additional information about them and predict their behavior. [2] Social perception refers to the initial stages in which people process information for analysis of another individual's dispositions and intentions. [3] It is combined with the cognitive ability to attend to and interpret a range of different social factors that may include: verbal messages, tone, non-verbal behavior, and knowledge of social relationships and an understanding of social goals.[4] Social perception is a key component of social interaction and social skills. A key aspect of social interaction is the process of inferring what others are thinking and feeling which is also referred to as Theory of Mind (ToM). [5]

Theory of Mind
Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to a broad understanding of other individual's mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and knowledge. ToM enables us to predict other people's behaviour and understand various concepts such as physical versus mental perspectives and making inferences about other people's thoughts and emotions. It also gives us the ability to take on another individual's perspective which is crucial for mental processes such as empathy.[6] ToM plays an important role in both social interaction and the perception of social interaction and is also closely related to social functioning. [7] ToM has been identified as a key component of positive social skills. It is an essential tool for social perception because it gives an individual the ability to infer what another individual is thinking. However, ToM does not always develop normally or may be damaged later in life. The irregular development or damage to ToM has been associated with many clinical conditions such as Schizophrenia, autism, Asperger's Syndrome, traumatic brain injury, and various forms of dementia including fronto-temporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease.[4] A cue of an impaired theory of mind in individuals with these conditions is poor social skills. Although there is no known fix for these clinical conditions and their damaged ToM, many social skill improvement and rehabilitation programs have been developed to help individuals smoothly integrate into society.