Brain Power

as a producer and director I've attended a lot of meetings now is the one you're attending today going to be just another meeting or is it going to be something more a meeting the minds and before you get started I want to talk with you about your mind and about thinking the process of using your gray matter in sophisticated and creative ways my thoughts are Guided by this book brain power by Dr Carl albre he points out that thinking is a builtin skill and that while all of us know how to think we don't think very much moreover he feels that intelligent people when assembled in an organization will tend toward what he calls Collective stupidity now you're obviously in an organization and you're obviously assembled is this meeting going to be an example of collective stupidity or is it going to be what a meeting should be a constructive interchange of human Minds at work now let me ask you something important if you decided to think more effectively during this meeting what would the benefits be to you as an individual and to the group as a whole there are things you can do here today that will develop important thinking skills skills which will make this a better meeting and make you all more effective thinkers interested follow me in the paper chase I appeared in a set much like this as Professor kingsfield Harvard Law who waged a NeverEnding campaign to turn his students into thinkers this is an appropriate place for us to be talking because what I want to discuss with you today concerns a key mental process we call this process perception and we use that broad term to describe the way we take in and interpret new information ideas and points of view when your meeting gets underway a lot of new ideas will be presented how well you react to these ideas will be governed by how you perceive them so it is important I think for us to look at how we perceive there are three principles of perception first of these is the principle of recognition recognition describes the process wherein we attempt to relate what we see with something we already know it enables us to deal with a wide variety of information without getting bogged down in detail the danger though is that some sometimes in our rush to process information we may Overlook details or key points that might actually be significant let me show you how easy it is to overlook details if you're wearing a watch I want you to cover it with your hand now without looking at it try to recall the face of your watch are the numbers Roman or Arabic numerals if it's digital tell me what words or labels appear on the face face difficult isn't it how many times do you suppose you've looked at that watch a thousand 10,000 okay uncover your watch now and look at it I hope there's enough light because otherwise it's going to drive you crazy details are often important now in your meeting today someone may present an idea that you think you recognize but do you as we've seen recognition represents your brain's attempt to match new information with something it already knows but what happens when you see or hear something that is new something that defies classification in that case the brain actually bends the new information and interprets it into something that it can recognize this process is called perceptual interpretation the problem comes when the brain in its rush to classify interprets information in a deceptive way a great deal of misinformation stems from errors in interpretation when we expect to see a particular thing we may see it even if it isn't there some examples first kindly look at this geometric figure no it isn't Pacman it's simply a circle with a wedge removed now would you believe that by putting five of these together I could make you see a star can you see the star of course you can but of course you can't because there is no star there your brain is simply filling in the missing information to make a complete pattern where none exists conversely our brains May conveniently edit out features which don't match up look at this side what does it say Paris in the spring look again Paris in the the spring in many cases our brain converts incoming data into what we think it should be now let me show you another illustration of our brain's desire for convenient information here now is part of a figure Feud study it appears to be a U-shaped object of some sort a magnet or a horseshoe perhaps now here is another part of that figure three cylinders or rods and now that you're familiar with the elements let's see how well you do with interpreting the figure as a whole problems this object does not seem to hold still in space but in fact what jumps around is your brain's conclusion about what it sees since your brain cannot resolve the image to only one of two possible interpretations you cannot arrive at a satisfactory conclusion notice how you feel in the face of ambiguity you lack the comfortable feeling of having classified a perceptual message you may even feel slightly annoyed to recap the principle of interpretation be careful how you interpret the thoughts and ideas which will occur in your meeting don't be in such a rush you may see something that isn't there or fail to see something that is there and especially important be willing to tolerate a little ambiguity don't jump to find a tried and true interpretation be willing to stretch and struggle a little that is how you grow the final perceptual principle is that of expectation expectation is a strongly held Readiness to perceive one particular thing as opposed to Alternative possibilities expectation controls much of perception we tend to organize our thoughts in terms of an expectation what we expect to see and hear has a lot to do with how we react to new ideas and even to other people the most amazing illustration of this is not something I can show you but I'll tell you about it several years ago Dr David rosenhan a Stanford University Professor conducted an experiment he had eight perfectly normal people show up at various Mental Hospitals and make up a story about themselves incorporating textbook symptoms in order to get admitted but once inside the subjects began to tell the truth that it was all an experiment now here's the interesting part no one would listen all the subjects were diagnosed as seriously maladjusted ranging from neurotic to schizophrenic these doctors obviously were working from very powerful unconscious expectations expectations like these can very well start a closed loop self-fulfilling prophecy and I urge you to be careful of the same kind of limiting expectation as you approach your meeting we tend to get what we expect to get what are you expecting you get paid to think if you're going to earn your money today remember that to perceive well is to think well expectation interpretation recognition are you willing to truly think to open your your mind and not to rush to interpret are you willing to look closely at detail to ask questions I hope so because if you are this room can vibrate with unique energy human Minds at work brain power