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Understanding human perception has intrigued artists, philosophers, scientists, and scholars for centuries. How do we sense the world through images? A myriad of mysteries remains about mental processes. This week's digital postcard explores a few of them.
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Welcome to another digital postcard filled with 3 things related to Visual IP*. It's designed to quickly inform, then get you on your way. In each issue you'll find an inspiring quote, an image, and a link to an essay or resource.
* Visual IP (intellectual property) = proprietary frameworks, diagrams, and drawings based on your ideas, which help you explain, influence, and persuade
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Join the Feedback Team for Authority by Design!
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Last week I announced that I'm creating Authority by Design, an online course and community to help recognized and rising experts distill their ideas into Visual IP — frameworks, diagrams, and models — to increase your visibility, influence, and revenue.
To make sure the course is 100% on target, I'm creating a Feedback Team — and I'd love you to be part of it.
The Feedback Team will be my thought partners. You'll make sure I'm on track. You'll tell me if the content is useful and relevant. Most of all, you'll let me know if I'm overlooking something important.
In exchange, you'll be in the inner circle and get a sneak peek at the course. You'll get a look at MY Visual IP before everyone else. You'll also hear about special offers just for the Feedback Team. There's no cost or financial obligation involved.
If you're interested in using frameworks, diagrams, and models in your work and would like to share your ideas, please enter your name and email in the one-question survey I've created.
Thanks for your interest and for joining me in this experiment!
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"We see things as we are, not as they are."
— Leo Rosten
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Longtime colleague Greg Godek sent in this week's image, which explores a phenomenon known as the Stroop Effect. It's related to selective attention, or the ability to respond to certain environmental stimuli while ignoring others.
In the mid-1930s, John Ridley Stroop did research on how the brain processes words and images. First, he asked participants to read a list of words printed in different colors. Then, he asked them to name the colors the words are printed in. (For example, the word "yellow" printed in green requires you to say "green" and move on to the next word.)
If you do this with the image above, you'll notice that you can quickly read the words, with little effort. However, naming the colors takes longer (and sometimes, much longer).
What's going on? Several theories exist, but all focus on mental processing. Reading uses a different part of the brain than recognizing colors. Plus, we've been reading these words for decades. Naming the colors requires us to stop, consider the color, name it, then put it into words to express — a much longer sequence.
Plus, there's an effect called "interference," in which the meaning of the word (yellow) and its color (green) are incongruent, creating a conflict that the brain has to resolve, which delays reaction time.
Thanks Greg, for sending this image my way. If you have an image to suggest, please send it along!
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Resource
Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire
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If I ask you to imagine an apple in your mind's eye, chances are you'll see that red round juicy fruit, maybe even with a short stem and a gleam on its surface.
But for 3-5% of the population, that request brings up a blank mental screen. They have aphantasia. It's the inability to visualize, sometimes known as image-free imagination.
Now before you think this sensory inability is a detriment, consider this list of highly creative individuals who are all aphantasics. Ed Catmull, co-found of Pixar. Craig Venter, biologist who first sequenced the human genome. Glen Keane, creator of Disney's The Little Mermaid. Steve Blank, godfather of the Lean Startup movement. Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller. Aphantasics imagine differently!
At the other end of the spectrum, about 10-15% of the population experiences the opposite: hyperphantasia, or extremely vivid visualization.
Want to discover how vivid your mind's eye is? Take the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (for free) and help contribute to the research database. It takes about 5-10 minutes to complete, and requires no registration.
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That wraps up another issue. Thanks to the readers who emailed me after my last issue — it's always great to hear from you. If you have ideas about people or images I should feature here, please nominate them.
If there are others you think might enjoy these types of ideas and resources, please forward this on.
Until next time: Make something happen,
Terri
PS: I hope you'll join me on the Feedback Team for Authority by Design!
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PS: Was this email forwarded to you? You can sign up to get your own copy on my website.
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