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March 28 - April 19, 2021
platypus,
To get the most accurate picture of anything, we need to see others’ perceptions and recognize others’ points of view.
nave,
we are all subjective beings—but what’s important to note is that our subjectivity can color the “truth” of what we see.
Perception is also shaped by a person’s values, upbringing, and culture.
“Each person comes to an artwork with their own history, their own politics, their own hopes and fears and all that stuff,”
people might be seeing things in that work that just aren’t there.”
Simply knowing how many things shape perception and that perception shapes what we see can help alleviate miscommunication and misunderstanding, preventing us from getting upset with others when they don’t see things the way we do. The fact is, they don’t. They can’t. No one can see things like you do except you.
Experimenters at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, conducted a study in which people increased the strength in their fingers by 35 percent solely by mental training—imagining exercising their finger fifteen minutes a day for twelve weeks—and not any real physical movement. The muscle gain without moving was possible because the mental rehearsal of movements activates the same cortical areas of the brain as physical movement.
Scientists at the University of Oslo found that although people cannot adjust the size of their eyes’ pupils voluntarily, their pupils would constrict by as much as 87 percent when they thought about an imaginary light.
The moment we become aware of a normally subconscious process, it crosses into our consciousness. Once these filters are exposed to our awareness, we can address them, sort through them, and overcome them if necessary.
perceptual filters—filters that distort or enhance the way we see.
The more familiar we are with what might alter our observations, the more astute and accurate they will be.
Observation is a study of facts. We know that we have perceptual filters that can color or cloud what we see, and we know that others have their own filters, but what we want to cull are facts. Sometimes our perceptual filters disguise opinions as facts,
subjective filters and their subjective findings aren’t necessarily useless. We don’t need to toss them out automatically. Instead, use the way other people look at things to lead you to new facts you might have missed otherwise.
To mine the most information possible, don’t close your eyes to anything, even someone else’s subjectivity.
cognitive bias, confirmation bias, myside bias, wishful seeing, and tunnel vision.
It puts us at risk of gathering information selectively, subconsciously seeking data that support our expectations and ignoring those that don’t.
“frequency illusion,”
occurs when we first learn about something and then suddenly see it everywhere—for
the tendency to see what we believe is largely unconscious, we can reduce its effect simply by knowing that expecting a certain outcome predisposes us to look harder for evidence that supports that expectation.
Even if we don’t realize it, we often see what we’re told to see.
pay special attention to any outside suggestions or restrictions that might be placed on your observation skills.
“charting by exception”
instructs personnel to document only unusual findings or exceptions to the norm. As a result, doctors and nurses are tempted to limit what they look for, especially if the chart is already filled with WDLs (“within defined limits”) from previous shift workers.
Your initial observation should be as unbiased and unlimited as possible.
I don’t mention the name of the artist or work in this book right away: because labels shape opinions and create prejudice.
To get a complete and accurate picture of anything, we need to aggregate all possible information and as many perspectives as possible so we can then sort through, prioritize, and make sense of it. Labels and prewritten accounts and existing information can then be included in our collection, but only after we have looked on our own first.
Look first ↓ Consult other preexisting information or opinions ↓ Look again
Samuel Renshaw
the vision expert whose system for recognizing aircraft at a glance was used to train 285,000 preflight cadets during World War II.
change blindness,
our brain encounters an estimated eleven million bits of information each second
When we go into any situation thinking it’s going to be the same thing we’ve seen or done before, we’re putting up our own perceptual filter that will make any change even harder to find. The resulting blinders can cause us to miss important details, to go into autopilot, or worse, to become presumptuous about our expertise, abilities, or safety. And that’s when things can get dangerous.
When doctors or police officers or teachers say, “I’ve seen this before,” they’re wrong. They may have seen or handled similar things or cases or people but not the new one in front of them; that one has never existed before.
Every person and situation is unique. To treat them otherwise is to deceive them and ourselves.
Illusionists and magicians take advantage of perceptual filters such as change blindness and confirmation bias to entertain us.
The same can be said of the tricks our brain can play on us; we are all vulnerable to our unconscious and ever-evolving filters. If we fail to acknowledge and examine them, they can hurt us. To arm ourselves against them, we must know them. Once we’re aware of our personal perceptual lenses, we can see past them.
cowering
we are using the piece not as an objet d’art but rather as a collection of data points. You may find the level of analysis of this Hopper painting on the following pages ridiculously detailed, but that’s the point. Don’t skim over any of it. Take your time and really absorb the process.
brim
milliner,
cloche.
Employing a similar investigative method of objectively assessing a person’s attire, behavior, and interactions with objects can help us uncover the identity or intentions of unknown people in any situation, from a traveler in the airport who might be a potential terrorist to a driver waiting curbside who might be a potential kidnapper.
reed
pensive,
there seems to be an absence of tension or conflict.
They are fully dressed
The animals pictured are calm.
the body language of the group is relaxed and suggests they all know one another.
