{"id":478,"date":"2012-04-18T12:34:02","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T16:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/?p=478"},"modified":"2013-04-01T18:35:08","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T22:35:08","slug":"the-way-you-see-is-how-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/?p=478","title":{"rendered":"The Way You See Is How You Think"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Steering-the-Elephant14.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-481\" title=\"An Elephant Rider\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Steering-the-Elephant14-150x150.png\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Most of us never give any thought to how we see. \u00a0We just look at something, and there it is. \u00a0Clear as a bell.<\/p>\n<p>Quickly look left or right and there is no blur.<\/p>\n<p>One of the things interesting about this phenomenon of everything staying in focus is that while we perceive that our vision is very controlled and directional, the eye is constantly moving.\u00a0 The purpose for this type of <em>involuntary, coordinated, rapid eye movement<\/em> (<a title=\"Definition of Saccade\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Saccade\">saccade<\/a>) allows us to build a three dimensional map that represents what we are seeing.\u00a0 When whatever we are looking at expands past <a title=\"Timing and Kinematics, Para. 4\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Saccade\">20\u00b0 of view<\/a>, our heads move slightly to keep the field of view continuous. \u00a0Our brains appear to hold on to an image for about 1\/15 of a second. \u00a0If something occurs in our visual field during that time \u2013 like rapidly flipping through still pictures \u2013 we perceive a sense of continuous motion.\u00a0 Involuntary rapid eye movements are controlled at two levels of our brain: cortically and subcortically.\u00a0 The double connection helps us understand and see faster.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Major point #1 \u2013 <em>You can only focus on one thing at a time \u2013 visually.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When we look at something, the center area of view is in focus with the rest of the visual field somewhat out of focus.\u00a0 The following pictures illustrate how the eye focuses.\u00a0 Start with the cake in the center of this picture.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Look at the Cake\" href=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-482 aligncenter\" title=\"Focus on the Cake\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-1.jpg\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-1.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-1-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">When you look at the cake, it is in focus and the rest is slightly out of focus, or blurred. In the next picture, the focus is on the plate on the left.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-2-Left.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-484 aligncenter\" title=\"Focus on the Plate\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-2-Left.jpg\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-2-Left.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-2-Left-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As you move your gaze from the cake to the plate, the cake blurs and the plate is sharp.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-3-Right.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485 aligncenter\" title=\"Focus on the Glass\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-3-Right.jpg\" width=\"550\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-3-Right.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-15-2011-Cake-Gaussian-Blur-3-Right-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Moving on to the glass in the upper right corner continues the pattern of new focus and blur<\/p>\n<p>We see without being aware of what is going on because the:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">time lapse is short,<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">optic nerve connects to two parts of the brain,<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">eyes rapidly move in a coordinated way.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In an earlier post on <a title=\"Focus, Focus, Focus...What Did I Just Miss?\" href=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/?p=371\">selective attention<\/a>, I linked to a video &#8211; <a title=\"Focus, Focus, Focus...What DidI Just Miss?\" href=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/?p=371\">The Monkey Business Illusion <\/a>&#8211; where the viewer is asked to count the number of ball passes made between team members.\u00a0 I have shown this to a number of groups, and the viewers who focus on the passes and do not think about anything else, arrive at the right number.\u00a0 There were also viewers who thought that someone on the other team was going to do something, so they tried to watch for that while counting.\u00a0 None of these viewers counted the correct number of passes.<\/p>\n<p>Every viewer to a person missed the forest for the trees.\u00a0 If you have not seen the video, <a title=\"Focus, Focus, Focus...What Did I Just Miss?\" href=\"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/?p=371\">go look<\/a>.\u00a0 I have given you a hint \u2013 the other team plays by the rules, so that should not be a distraction.<\/p>\n<p>Two things are going on in the video related to what people observe.\u00a0 First, if visually focusing on the ball, the background is blurred.<\/p>\n<p>The second component is an intellectual one.\u00a0 The directions for the video tell the viewer to focus on certain parameters.\u00a0 When processing the information presented, the viewer \u201cblurs out\u201d information not pertinent to the task.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\u00a0Due to the directions, the viewer\u2019s intellectual focus is restricted more than normal as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Major point #2 \u2013 <em>You can only focus on one thing at a time \u2013 intellectually<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Which leads me to the following conclusion:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Major point #3 \u2013 <em>It is not possible to multi-task.\u00a0 At best, you can rapidly serial task<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We can only focus on one thought, idea, or problem at a time.\u00a0 When we think of something else, we move our intellectual focus to that, with the previous thought slightly blurred.\u00a0 If those thoughts occur closely enough to each other in time, we perceive that they are occurring simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p>Rapidly serial tasking can be distracting when trying to accomplish something, like trying to count passes or taking in your environment. \u00a0It also explains why people misunderstand what others are saying to them when the listener is \u201cmultitasking\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most of us never give any thought to how we see. \u00a0We just look at something, and there it is. \u00a0Clear as a bell. Quickly look left or right and there is no blur. One of the things interesting about this phenomenon of everything staying in focus is that while we perceive that our vision [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communications","category-teamwork"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678,"href":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steeringtheelephant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}