Following the successful read of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and learning of discussions underway on the internet regarding his follow up book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking it was clear Blink had to be the next book I picked up the night I finished The Tipping Point. And its another success for Gladwell.
So what is the truth about instantly making a decision in the blink of an eye? We have the ability for rapid cognition…but do we use it in our daily lives? It should tell you a lot about the situation at hand regardless of the outcome:
For instance Gladwell shares these situations: Can you tell the forgery of an ancient piece of art or can you tell the difference between two musicians playing behind a curtain during an audition with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra?
And can you instantly recognize when a professional tennis player will fault on serve even before the ball is struck by the player’s racket? Gladwell shares how rapid cognition can work to your advantage and how we have unfortunately conditioned ourselves to look beyond the ‘gut’ feeling because our eyes can play visual tricks … often for the worse.
I was impressed to learn of police organizations who study facial recognition patterns to develop rapid cognition between a frighten citizen and a hardened criminal … all in the blink of any eye, when life or death can hang in the balance.