Do Not Be Fooled By Your Perception

Copyright (c) 2014 Mak Martin
Our experiences shape our perception and our world. Through our experiences we have formed a working map of how the world is and how it works, but more often than not our previous perceptions can be wrong when we experience what is known as a paradigm shift.

For instance, let's say you are having a cup of coffee and a cake at an outdoor cafe. Suddenly you catch a glimpse of a person at the sidewalk waiting for a cab. Somehow the person's face and mannerism seem familiar to you. Maybe this person looks like your high school friend many years ago. But your old school is miles away. You look closely at that person and the person catches your gaze. Both of you look at each other for a few seconds until the other person looks down and checks his watch and hails the cab and goes off. You realize you've made a mistake. So often, in so many situations, our brain fools us simply because our grey cells respond on cue to our previous experiences and expectations. If you never expect to meet an old friend at a sidewalk cafe, you will find a suitable explanation for what you have just seen. These interpretations often lead us into traps, tricking or fooling our sense of perception.

One day I was driving along a straight road on a hot sunny day and my son exclaimed "We're driving into a big puddle !". We slowed down and as we neared the "puddle" we realized it was a mirage, an optical illusion. Such illusions can lure those lost in the desert to their doom. When viewed from a distance, mirages can look like a big area of water like a lake, or they make remote parts of a landscape much closer than they are. Such illusions can be explained through differences in temperature of the air.

Our brain has evolved to the point where it has to makes sense of the world as perceived by stimulus through the other senses. If the information is incomplete, the brain has to fill in the gaps to make sense out of what it receives. We could use this ability to form a basis of a good memory and recall. Memory experts and straight-A students have somehow figured a way to form meaningful associations out of two or more pieces of information that have no link at all. 

They have used the brain's ability to achieve astonishing feats of memory, such as memorizing a long list of items or a long chain of numbers. A more pragmatic user would have used this ability of the brain to memorise complicated mathematical formulas, scientific equations, even memorise long biblical verses, learn a foreign language and even teach young children math skills like memorizing the multiplication tables.

They have turned something abstract, like numbers, or a foreign word into something meaningful , like a mental picture or stories that helps the human mind achieve astounding feats of memory.

If you have trouble recognizing faces and remembering names, like many people I know, you can let your senses do the work to improve your memory and recall. Practise looking at scenes and inanimate objects with a quick sweep of your eyes, then closing your eyes and recall the details of what you have just seen. 

This way, when you meet someone new, you can do the same without a rude stare and identify distinguishing features of a person with a quick glance, like the color of the hair, eyes or shape of the nose. The clothes the person is wearing, jewellery, scent and perfume. With enough practice, a quick sweep of the eyes can transfer enough information from your observation to your brain to be processed. You then proceed to associate your observations with the person's name, by making interesting pictures or stories. This way you discover you'll be able to remember new faces and names much better.