Now You See It

1. Now You See It Cathy N. Davidson

2. Exercise • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

3. Results • YOU’RE NOT STUPID! YOU’RE NORMAL! • Under normal circumstances over half the participants miss the gorilla. • With the addition of peer pressure the number increases immensely.

4. Attention Blindness • We focus so much on one task that miss everything else around us. • “We’re not nearly as smart as we think we are.” (Davidson 2) • Davidson believed that “we can pool our insights and together see the whole picture. That’s significant. The gorilla experiment isn’t just a lessons in brain biology but a plan for thriving in a complicated world.” (Davidson 2)

5. So What’s The Issue? • “We can’t even develop a method for solving the dilemma until we admit there’s a gorilla in the room and were too preoccupied counting basketballs to see it.” (Davidson 3) • How can we fix a problem we’re unaware of?

6. Education • The 20th century education system and workplace was designed for singular systematic tasks. • “Setting a clear goal is key. But having clear goals means that we’re constantly missing gorillas.” (Davidson 6)

7. Multitasking is key! • “The digital age was structured without anything like a central node broadcasting one stream of information.” (Davidson 6) In the last decade… 12 billion emails sent per day to 247 billion From 400,000 text messages to 4.5 billion From 2.7 hours spent online to 18 hours a week

8. Time to Restructure • We should be restructuring our workplace and our school system to adapt to these changes so we stop missing gorillas. • We’re so busy attending multitasking and information overload, not to mention arguing if we can even live without these technologies, that we forgot to restructure these institutions.

9. Brain = Iphone • The Iphone comes with basic functionality. • To personalize your Iphone you download apps and delete them as you see fit. • The brain is like an Iphone in the way that it too comes with basic functions. Apps are a lot like how we pay attention to the world around us. Our interests shape what we pay attention to like apps shape how use an Iphone.

10. 65% of kids entering grade school this year will end up working in careers that haven’t even been invented yet. • How does that matter? “You need to break a pattern, to free yourself from old ways before you can adopt the new. That means admitting the gorilla is there, even if you’re the only person in the room who does or doesn’t see it.” (Davidson 19)

11. How do we fight the attention blindness epidemic? • We don’t need to fight alone. • “collaboration by difference” • I’ll count, you take care of that gorilla!

12. Are you convinced? • Advertisements on TV are aimed to seek your attention in a way that highlights why you need it. • “Depression hurts… Cymbalta can help” (Davidson 23) • Although listing side effects are required by the FDA, ads somehow distract your attention from the scary warnings about liver damage, suicidal thoughts, and fatality. • Distraction experts found that a typical viewer really pays attention to only 6.5 seconds of an ad. • Commercials advertising drugs highlight the ‘benefits’, rather than the chance of death, thus convincing us against our better judgment.

13. Selective Hearing • “Viewers are more likely to remember hearing positive rather than negative claims” (Davidson 24). • The makers of these ads understand our patterns of attention and distraction, in a way to hinder the negative possibilities. • Distraction is persuading us to choose differently. • The creators know enough about our cognitive patterns to fit them to satisfying their own goals. • Do you think we can forgo them manipulating our minds? • No! Carefully crafted ads progress like a transformation story “with scenes of peril and punishment rewarded by a happy ending” (Davidson 26). • Next time you watch an advertisement, notice how much happier the characters are when they finally have the product. Cymbalta to the rescue!

14. You’re expecting it • By the end of the commercial you have probably lost interest because you know what it is about. You expect it to end with happy scenes, with a woman’s voice murmuring the side effects because you are not intended to hear it. • Although the voice over is reciting how the product can harm you, you are relaxed with visual enlightenment.

15. Tricks of the Trade • “If viewers remember the positive but not the negative content of the ad, it is because highly skilled professionals have worked hard to make the conditions for distraction possible” (Davidson 28). • This kind of advertisement is meant to make you feel like “without Cymbalta, everything is in jeopardy” (Davidson 28). • Goals: • Identify so closely with the people • We see their pain as our pain, their solution as oursg

16. Researching Trends • “All components in this ad have been researched, planned, constructed, tested, edited, tried out in front of studio audiences, discussed in focus groups, re-edited, and tested yet again” (Davidson 29). • Advertisers look for the nitty gritty details, seeking out unconscious patterns of our attention.

17. Contrasting cultures • Attention is sourced from “cultural values embedded so deeply that we can barely see them” (Davidson 30). • Values establish cultural transmission • Physiology of attention blindness • Foreign cultures seem so strange because we are not familiar with many other customs and behaviors. • “Multitasking is really multidistracting, with attention not supplemented but displaced from one point of focus to another” (Davidson 31).

18. What do you notice? • Essentially, “we apply information from one experience when we need it in another” (Davidson 32). • In the passage, Davidson describes the ray of sunlight to create a distraction for the baby, but the child’s parents point out what he should be paying attention to, and they give him a rattle. • We are often directed and told what to notice. What counts? • Unconsciously we act naturally by following society’s expectations, therefore constantly repeating the same script.

19. Raising a Child • The baby knows his cries illicit a response from his parents. • Parents in different societies raise a child with values they should have as they grow up. • Raising a child in another country would differ by cultural emphases in its upbringing. • Motherese—by asking and answering questions to the baby, it demonstrates the intent to “build an Andy who asks questions and demands answers” (Davidson 36). • Andy knows he can seek his parent’s attention by either crying or smiling.

20. Learning and Attention • Learning happens in categories, with values clumped together in our words, concepts, and actions. And this is where attention and its concomitant attention blindness come from” (Davidson 38). • The child is aware that the plumber is foreign in the environment of his nursery. This stranger catches his attention, distracting him. • Davidson assumes baby Andrew wonders why everything in his room is blue– because even at an early age, he is able to categorize the items by color. • “Brain science of attention works, with the world around us focusing our attention on what counts” (Davidson 42).

21. How complex is the brain? Neurons are the most basic cells in the nervous system (Brain and Spinal Cord) The brain contains an estimation of more than 100 billion neurons There are over a million billion neural connections in your brain

23. Williams Syndrome • 26 genes are absent from the 7th chromosome • Too few neural networks in the brain are cut away • Children with this usually test very low IQ (40’s – 50’s) but increases in other personality features • Very low working memory, inability to do simple operations Example: Tieing ones shoe

24. Mirror Neurons • First discovered in monkeys, later found that humans also have mirror neurons • Mirror neurons behave in the same way if a human is doing an activity or simply observing the activity • Mirror neurons allow us to see what others see

25. Adaptation and Change • We as human beings are constantly in a state of adaptation • We can change by accident, but we can also train ourselves to be aware of our own neural processing (repetition, selection, mirroring) • We can arrange our lives and have partners help with us by seeing what we miss on our own