Most of the time we as humans make snap judgements. We do this for a variety of reasons: its familiar, its routine, its easy, and it saves time. And . . . most of time this works for us.
Examples: Reaching for a carton of milk. We know what a carton of milk looks like. There aren’t too many other things that look like a carton of milk. So we don’t have to read the carton to verify it is a carton of milk. See…its a short cut of life!
Example 2: However, other times that works against us. We poured a glass of milk out of the carton early that day and it was full. We didn’t know other people had many glasses of milk since that time. We reach in to grab the milk carton and we expect it to be a little heavy, but it is empty. So when we lift it up we almost send it to the ceiling anticipating that it will be heavy.
Take a look at this picture:
When you first look at the picture, you think, “Wow, that is three very short girls.” But you hesitate. Why? Because your inner thoughts find that a bit out of place, a bit odd. So, you take a closer look and slowly start to realize that the picture was shot at a very strange angle. Had only one of the girls looked short you might have not stopped to look…but all three? That’s just not normal. This is how eyewitness accounts can be seriously skewed in the real world. We don’t really look at something unless we feel something is not right.
Here is another:
You look at the guy sitting down and you think, OK. The the guy hanging, interesting but looks legit. The guy running in the background looks a little bit odd . . . and then it hits you something is just not right about this picture . . . you step back and look at the whole composition and realize that you have been pranked. I think, for me, the real give away was the bicycle in the picture. If that wasn’t here…it might have taken me even more time to realize this was a clever ruse.
So, what is the Mind Trip this week? It is just reminding you that many things escape your notice because we only take a quick look at something and let our memory/imagination fill in the blanks and think we really saw what we only think we saw!