What we miss purely by paying attention.

I would like to start this post by asking you to watch this clip. I would like to suggest that you play it at full screen, pay very close attention and follow the instructions.

I first saw this clip whilst watching a TV show called 'Test your Brain'. The documentary points out some very interesting facts about how our mind works and the things we miss whilst paying attention to other things.

How did you go with the clip? Don't worry if you missed it.  I was flawed at the fact that I completely missed it! I was so focused on counting and getting the number right (I can be quite competitive), that there really was no way I would have seen anything else.

 

I am a stickler for being focused and paying attention on the things that are important. But after watching the above clip I now wonder what I am missing around me in the mean time. Well I guess that is the price we pay to secure a memory.

 

"The more attention the brain pays to a given stimulus, the more elaborately the information will be encoded - and retained."
(Medina, J. 2008 brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school, Scribe, Melbourne)

 

That is great for those things we are paying attention to. How do we know what to pay attention to?

According the 'brain rules' we use previous experiences to predict where we should pay attention. This must mean that the more we experience, the better we would be at predicting where we should pay our attention to, right?

I do now wonder what I am missing each time I step outside my door. I wonder if I had actually paid attention to something, would it have changed my experience and therefore my perception of the environment around me? Something to ponder.

 

If you don't expect to see something, you probably won't see it. Remember that it doesn't mean it wasn't there.

Veronica Wood