Awareness Test

Basketball and the gorilla - a test of perception.

There are many difficult angles / perspectives to discuss regarding the video. Here are the main points:

1. It’s about focus and misdirection. If you tell someone to do something specific (i.e. focus and count the number of throws between people in white shirts) then that is what they’ll tend to do. It shows the power of language, the power of persuasion. We need to consider language more in our courses. Rather than starting with a list of learning objectives, we should be getting learners excited about the course and the benefits of completing it.

1. In the Mindset section of MESSAGE, we talk about clearing distractions; clearing the mind before learning. “It’s difficult to see (or learn) anything while you’re concentrating on something else”. We have talked about the 7+-2 rule for working memory. Recent studies have shown this may be even less. Therefore, it’s more effective to shut down (or park) anything that’s not relevant to the learning.

1. Another aspect we talk about in Accelerated Learning is the Big Picture, and again if we’re focused on one specific thing we’re missing the Big Picture, which is important for learning.