Improving Observation Skills

Perception, Reality, and Distractions

Observation is what you perceive with your senses. Perception is taking what we observe and organize it to give it meaning. Our perception is determined by our past experiences, culture, values, and beliefs. Because each person assigns different value to each of these influences, the same object or event is perceived differently by different people. This is why multiple eye witnesses to the same crime often have very different descriptions of the same suspect or event. Although our eyes may see the same thing, we filter, focus, and perceive it differently.

Another limit to our perception is our human brain. Optical illusions point out these limits. Looking at an optical illusion, you may think that a straight line is curved or a still image to be moving. You don't always see what you think you do.

Read the text inside the triangle. The text reads "A Bird In The Bush." Or does it?

As quickly as you can, say the COLOR of each word above, not the word itself. This demonstrates a conflict between your left brain which reads the words, and your right brain which notices the colors. The task gets easier with practice!

Which line segment is longer? The line segments are actually of equal length! The arrows trick our brain into thinking the line segments are longer or shorter in comparison.

How big is the white square in the middle? Guess what…there is no square! The cutouts on the circles make us see a white square!

Do you see a duck or a bunny? In optical illusions, we can often see one image in two ways.

How many gray dots do you count? Look closely. Actually, there's none! When you look directly at a dot, it disappears.

Despite the limits of our brains, people have a remarkable ability to focus, and that ability enables us to accomplish our goals. Even when we are focused, we may not see everything we are focused on. Our misconception about how well we can focus on a task makes us prone to distractions.

What is a distraction? According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a distraction is "something that makes it difficult to think or pay attention". So a distraction could be anything! It could be thinking to hard about a personal problem, letting your mind wander, surfing the Web, chatting with a friend, or talking on your cell phone.

Watch the video

Have you ever walked down the street and had someone on their cellphone bump into you? Researchers at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, decided to study whether cellphones were such a distraction that people wouldn't notice weird events happening around them. [Grimthingcom, 2012].

[PDF transcript]

Idea Log

Everyone has experienced a time where they "missed" something while on their phone, at work, at home, driving, cooking, etc. Share an experience when you missed something.

← Previous Next →