Being Observant – A Follow-up to the Invisible Gorilla post

I want to expand on some of the topics in my last post about The Invisible Gorilla.  If you haven’t read it yet, you should pause here to read The Invisible Gorilla post, and then come back to this post.  I say this because it will help you understand where I’m coming from and also because there are some spoilers in this posts that would make the other post less understandable.

In the Invisible Gorilla post I shared a few videos that demonstrated the how the focus of the human mind can be so keen as to completely miss an obviously out of place element.  Before experiencing this for myself, I would not have believed it.  How could anyone watch a video and completely miss a gorilla strolling through the scene.  The gorilla was in the scene for a full nine seconds and even paused in the middle to thump his chest.

I pride myself on being observant.  I like to notice things that other people miss.  I like to see the hidden treasures in our world.  Noticing everything and paying attention to the treasures along the way is integral to enjoying my path through life.  A big part of this blog is about our path in life.  And now to see so clearly that it is so easy to miss things, it makes me feel a little disappointed.  Disappointed in my ability to notice things and disappointed that it seems to be part of human nature.

I find it important to pay attention to these things that are irritating or disappointing.  They are usually changes to expand our minds, and this is one of those cases.  Our focus is what allows us to work more efficiently.  It allows us to tune out distractions.  It’s part of what allows us to function as a highly evolved animal.

In my interaction with others, especially in the workplace, I find there are two types of people.  There are big picture people and there are detail oriented people.  I wonder what the split is among these types when they take the gorilla test.  I’m a big picture person; I always look to see how the details affect the situation as a whole.  Other people I work with are detail people; they excel at digging into the details to make things work.  Both are necessary parts of any company.  My feeling is that, on average, big picture people will notice the gorilla more often than detail people.

On the other hand, I may be way off about that, it may be too broad a generalization.  I wonder if this ability to notice things is built into our DNA.  That is, if it’s part of us from birth, or instead if it’s something that can be learned.  I suspect to a certain degree it can be learned.  At least that what I gather from all the spy movies I’ve seen.  You know, the ones where the CIA agent goes through training and learns to notice everything around them, the ones where the Secret Service guy spots the suspicious character, and the ones where the hero notices danger and is able to make a crucial escape.

I want to note that there are two related terms in this field of attention and perception.

One is Change Blindness.  This is where we fail to notice a change, and relies on us having a comparison in memory.  For example, one person is standing behind a counter.  He ducks down to retrieve something, and someone else takes his place.  Not recognizing the different person from the one in your memory is Change Blindness.

The other is Inattentional Blindness. This is where a change in the environment or field of vision is not noticed, and does not require any comparison from memory.  The Invisible Gorilla video is a good example of this, where people are focused on counting balls and miss a gorilla walking through the scene.

The question in my mind is:  Can we be trained to overcome change and inattentional blindness? I know that we can train ourselves to be more observant, and we can train ourselves to notice more things in our environment.  It’s difficult to find any evidence in the Google searching I did.  (If you find any evidence please let me know in the comment section below.)  My feeling is that we can overcome it to a certain extent.  After all, 50% of the people studied in experiments on change and inattentional blindness are able to notice the change.  So what makes those 50% different?

A couple of years ago I started a little training of my own in order to be more observant.  I didn’t like the fact that I would often miss things that others would notice, and I wanted to change that.  I also really liked the heroes in the spy movies that noticed every little detail in a room.  I don’t remember the name of the movie, but it was one where some young people were studying to enter the CIA, and part of their training was to become more observant.  I was really interested in that component of the movie.  And much like the kung fu movies, where after the movie I kung fu everyone in the house including the cat, I got pumped up and wanted to emulate some things I had seen.  In the movie, much of the practice involved memorizing a pile of items on a table, covering the pile with a blanket, and then recalling everything they saw.

Well, that kind of activity may be beneficial, but it seemed kind of boring to me.  Instead I developed some of my own techniques for becoming more observant.  The main technique was simply to practice being more observant.  Here are a few of the activities I practiced.

One New Thing Per Day

On the way to work I would make an effort to notice one thing I had never seen before.  I drive to work every day, so you’d think I’d seen it all, but day after day I was able to find things I hadn’t noticed before.

The Unnoticed Item

At random times throughout the day I would make an effort to notice something that I felt most people wouldn’t notice.  It might be a stapler that’s always there on the desk, or the way a cord loops down under the desk, or a spot on the floor that never got cleaned.  I tried to pay attention to the little things that often get overlooked.

A Walk in the Park

I liked to take walks in the park, but I realized I often failed to pay attention to all the details.  So I began taking time to notice more things during my walks in the park.  From a small ant carrying a tidbit of food to the way a tree spreads its branches.  There is so much to see in nature, we very often fail to notice most of it.

Sit and See

Sometime I like to just sit outside my home and enjoy the outdoors.  While I was in my quest to become more observant, I practiced by looking at everything around me as I sat outside.  I looked in all directions; down at the ground, up in the sky, to my left in the grass, to my right in the flower beds.  I noted the differences in each piece of mulch.  I noticed how the flowers leaned towards the sun.  I look with the intent to see all the details that I usually don’t bother paying attention to.

This was all good practice and I think it did help me to become a little more observant.  I think mostly the repetitive nature of my observance practices helped plant a small seed in my mind.  It’s one that clicks every once in a while and says, “pay attention.”  That pay attention seed helps me to be more observant.

Even so, I don’t think any of us can be observant all the time.  We have times where focus is required, and that focus must tune out distractions.  There is some compromise needed between focus and observance to all that is around us.  Through the videos I’ve seen recently on change blindness and inattention blindness I have come to realize that this tuning out is a necessary part of us.  I’m also going to go a little easier on those around me when they don’t happen to notice all the details.  I’m seeing that it’s one of my flaws to be a little short with people when they don’t see the same things I see.  I’m going to work on that.

If you like this kind of thing, you should check out the book The Invisible Gorilla.

I hope you are finding this topic as interesting as I am.  If so, be sure to sign up to receive my posts for free.

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Tagged as: Know yourself, Observant