No. It's not a test format. It's how we create our personal reality. We conveniently fill in the blanks. When there's too much data to absorb, and there always is, we're forced to skip over much of it, instead back-filling in the blanks for our convenience. Some may say we maintain our sanity instead with this approach.
The article, this morning, Blind to Change: Even As It Stares Us in the Face by Natalie Angier, brings this point to light with the example of our vision process. We scan quickly for anomalies and exceptions, filling the blanks we create from our limited ability to process all of that information in a reasonable sized brain.
Ms. Angier writes:
... the brain has evolved mechanisms for combating data overload, allowing large rivers of data to pass along optical and cortical corridors almost entirely unassimilated, and peeling off selected data for a close, careful view.
Too often, that's how we manage our business. We scan for anomalies, fill in the blanks for our convenience, and are shocked, shocked I say, by the change, imminent or pending, that stares us in the face.
There aren't any real solutions. There are ways to manage this challenge.
* Maybe a great big, much bigger, brain? Here's another area where size matters. But unlike baseball, steroids won't help.
* Changing your routine can help. That forces you to interact with your world differently.
* Talk a lot. It allows you to process the data more completely. On the other hand, you can get self-obsessed and then you're an universe of one...walking the streets.
* Write a lot. Writing forces you to think (or it should. There's some doubt if you watch network news.) It slows the decision-making process. You make fewer decisions. But the decisions are better from having processed more of the data.
* Diversity. Diversity in your life keeps the brain open and expansive and flexible. But then it also adds volumes to the input you're forced to process. On the other hand, you'll process more data...maybe.
We're successful in life to the extent we can avoid being blind-sided ( or facialed if the change is staring back at us) by data we conveniently overlook. That brings happiness, dignity, success, ok money and affluence and influence to our lives and those around us, our family and those we lead.
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