Визуальный интеллект: Amy Herman’s Perception Test

Визуальный интеллект: Amy Herman’s Perception Test

by Евгений Волков -
Number of replies: 2

Очень интересный видеокурс про визуальную наблюдательность. Автор проводит тренинги для врачей и следователей. Там есть ссылки ещё на две видеолекции, а в первой как раз даётся тест.

How Visually Intelligent Are You? Take Amy Herman’s Perception Test

Amy Herman
Educational Development
Sometimes it’s not what is there, it’s what isn’t. Let’s rewind.

Amy Herman created and conducts all sessions of ‘The Art of Perception’, an education program that was initially used to help medical students improve their observation skills. Often in diagnostics, you’re not looking for what you can see, but what you can’t – this is called the 'pertinent negative'. The same goes for investigations, and so the program was adapted for the New York City Police Department, and other intelligence agencies. Really, Herman says, it’s about fine-tuning something we take as a given: our visual intelligence. This refers to the concept that we see more than we can possibly process. What we register is just a fraction of the world around us, so how can we see more? Like any other skill or muscle, to get the most and best use out of it, it needs training.

Amy Herman’s visual intelligence tests and exercises are best done with a friend, because every time they unveil something about perspective that you didn’t expect. Herman created and teaches a course called The Art of Perception to doctors, intelligence analysts and the NYPD, and while her lessons are entertaining for individuals looking to have their minds blown, they are immensely relevant for businesses and even more so for criminal investigations.

TRANSCRIPT

Amy Herman:  Visual intelligence is the concept that we see more than we can process and it's the idea of thinking about what we see, taking in the information and what do we really need to live our lives more purposefully and do our jobs more effectively. What I ask the people at The Art of Perception to do one of them is looking down at a piece of paper and the other is looking at the painting and they have one minute to describe what it is that they see to their partner and the partner has to sketch what are they hear. And it's not about the artwork, it's not about how well you draw it's how well can you describe a new set of unfamiliar data, how well do you listen and how well do you take that articulation and transfer it to your own language.

How many of you said there was a train coming out of a fireplace? And everyone raises his or her hands. And how many of you referenced smoke or steam in your discussion? Lots of hands go up. And then I ask the question who articulated that there are no tracks under the train? And a few astute people actually raised their hand and said I said there were no tracks under the train. And then I ask who noticed and then articulated that there was no fire in the fireplace? And hands go up. Not too many. Then we talk about other aspects in the painting. How many people mentioned the wood grain on the floor? Most people noticed the wood grain on the floor. How many people mentioned wainscoting, that kind of paneling on the walls? And I always have some decorative arts aficionados oh yes I know about wainscoting. And then I say how many of you mentioned a mantle on the fireplace? Lots of hands go up. Who mentioned candlesticks? Lots of hands go up. And then I ask how many of you said there were no candles in the candlesticks? And people say oh no never got there. And then I ask what really observant nerd said it's 12:42 or 8:05 on the clock? Who got to mention the time?

And the reason I have that line of questioning is because this painting illustrates a very important concept that I transfer from emergency medicine to a much broader application. And the idea is called the pertinent negative. It's saying what isn't there in addition to what is there to actually give a more accurate picture of what you're looking at. So when you say I see a train coming out of the fireplace, and by the way there are no tracks under the train and there is no fire in the fireplace, why would you attempt to say what's not there? Because in my third-grade mind if you told me to draw a fireplace I would draw two sticks and a fire and smoke in the fireplace unless you told me not to. And if you told me to draw a pair of candlesticks I'll draw candles with flames unless you tell me not to. So the pertinent negative is this wonderful concept that gives us a broader way of looking at something. Instead of looking at something like this you look at it like this.

And here's a example of how you apply that in the real world. The pertinent negative in a medical situation is when someone comes into the emergency room and they have all the symptoms, it appears to the physician they have all the symptoms of pneumonia. Pneumonia has three symptoms. Symptom one is present, symptom two is present, but if symptom three is absent it's the pertinent negative. You have to say septum three is not there therefore it's not pneumonia. So in the real world, outside of medicine, how can we use this? If we have an expectation of someone's behavior, you expect them to behave a certain way and then they don't you need to say it didn't happen. You're evaluating someone on the job. Well, you did A, B, and C very well but you didn't do D, E and F. So it's looking at the affirmative and looking at the negative. And the pertinent negative is a wonderful tool. Missing person's cases you go to their homes, what's not there? The cell phone is not there. The keys are not there. The wallet is not there. You're going to have a very different search for that person if those things were present instead of absent. So this Magritte painting gives us this great opportunity to talk about not just what we see but what we don't see to give the person who can't see what we see a much more accurate description of what they're looking at.

VIDEOS

AMY HERMAN

Educational Development

Founder of The Art of Perception

Amy E. Herman, JD, MA, designed, developed and conducts all sessions of The Art of Perception. While working as Head of Education at The Frick Collection, she instituted the program for medical students to improve their observation skills. After expanding the medical program to seven medical schools in New York, Ms. Herman adapted the program for law enforcement professionals across a wide range of agencies including the New York City Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice and the Secret Service. Ms. Herman holds a BA in International Affairs from Lafayette College, a JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University, and an MA in Art History from Hunter College.

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In reply to Евгений Волков

Визуальный интеллект: Make Better High-Stakes Decisions

by Евгений Волков -

Visual Intelligence: Make Better High-Stakes Decisions 

TRANSCRIPT

Amy Herman: Visual intelligence is the concept that we see more than we can process and it's the idea of thinking about what we see, taking in the information and [asking] what do we really need to live our lives more purposefully and do our jobs more effectively? I work across the professional spectrum. So I work with police officers and intelligence analysts and doctors and nurses and librarians, but what's interesting for me is that the four A's are applicable to all of that. And what they are is any new situation, any new problem, any new client, any new transaction, any new environment that you're in you practice the four A's.

The first one is: you assess your situation. What do I have in front of me? What information is here? I want people to go beyond the four corners of what they think they see. So this is what's in front of me; this is where I am. Ask someone. This is my situation; here's where I am; this is what I see. Is there something here I might be missing? Because by asking someone else we realize that no two people see anything the same way. So, of course, that doesn't work all the time but if you're in an office situation, if you're in a medical situation and you have the opportunity to collaborate, you get the biggest picture of your assessment if you ask other people what they see as well.

The second step is to analyze the information. That's where you break it down and you say: what's important? What do I need to prioritize? What's most important? And what don't I really have to worry about at all? I find that when you make a mental list in your head: "Okay here's my situation" and you divide it into categories: information I need, information I might need, and information I definitely don't need. And for the information that you definitely don't need put it away because our brains are so cluttered with so much information that if you can from the outset get rid of some information do it, but keep that middle category information that you might need because you might have to draw on it when you don't realize that it's important. It could become more important as the process goes on.

The third A, I think, is actually the most important. It's how you articulate what you observe. Whether you send an email, whether you pick up the phone, whether you tell a colleague, whether you write it down, the idea of putting into words what your observations are is the most important because I tell all my groups I don't know why this is but something gets lost from here to here to here. Our brains and our eyes see something but when it comes to articulating those observations, whether it's poor choice of words or an inability to communicate effectively there's a real loss that I'm trying to redress. I ask people to be mindful of every word. Every word counts. And an example that I can give you that I give in the book was the investigation of the murder of Chandra Levy in Washington DC back in 2001. When the instruction was given to look for the body, the instruction was to 'look 100 yards from every trail in the park where she disappeared', but when the instruction was repeated they said 'look 100 yards from every road in the park'. Now the change of one word from trail to road changed the whole scope of the investigation. So in that third A, in that articulating what you observe, I ask people be mindful of every word because someone is listening and every word counts.

And the fourth A is after you've assessed, analyzed and articulated what it is that you observe you adapt your behavior or you make a decision or as I like to say you act. You take all that information then you make a judgment call based on those three other elements. I want people to act according to their observations so if you're ever questioned about why you made a certain decision, why did you take a certain road, why did you solve a problem this way, you're able to go back to the other A's and say 'Well I thought the situation was this. This was the information I thought was important. I perceived this therefore I made this decision.' Give yourself the tools to back up the decisions you make so that when your questioned about your decisions you have all the information you need to make a thoughtful purposeful and objective assessment of why you made the decision. 

VIDEOS

828 words

In reply to Евгений Волков

Визуальный интеллект: How Refined Is Your Visual Intelligence?

by Евгений Волков -

CSI: How Refined Is Your Visual Intelligence?

TRANSCRIPT

Amy Herman: This is an interesting painting and I want you to just take a look at it for a few seconds before we talk about it. I've looked at this painting a thousand times. I use it in my classes, I've seen it in art museums when it's been on view and there is so many subtleties. But one of the assumptions that I made, not as an art historian but just a viewer of art is that what I was looking at on the plate was a piece of meat like a piece of ham with and eye in the center. And when I first showed it at one of my classes I said okay who's going to tell me what they see and someone raised his hand and said that's a big old pancake on the plate. And I would have never considered that it was a pancake. Is it a material distinction? Maybe, maybe not. But he was so sure that it was a pancake and I was so sure that it was a piece of meat, while it might seem like a really subtle distinction it's not if you think about something like eyewitness testimony. Well, he was wearing a red sweater. No, he was wearing a blue sweater. That's a big difference.

And one of the things that reminded me of the Magritte painting there was a crime scene in Texas and they were speaking to a witness and they said what did he look like? What did the suspect look like? And the witness said he had a cowboy hat on. So everyone was looking, and in Texas lots of people wear ten-gallon hats. So they were looking for a suspect with a cowboy hat on. Well, it turns out the suspect was wearing a Dallas Cowboys cap. So the choice of words it wasn't a cowboy hat it was a Dallas Cowboys hat. The idea of a saying what you see and being sure about what you say that's how communication lines can get crossed. And another interesting thing about that Magritte painting that I found fascinating, one of the wonderful things about writing the book is people write to you. They read your book and they send you their own observations and I received an email from a woman who said has anyone ever told you when they look at that painting and describe it to you that the fork to the right of the plate is turned upside down and the tines are facing into the table. I had never noticed that. I had a look at the painting a thousand times. And again, material difference? No. Critical? No. Important? Yes. It's one of those details because if someone said to me describe the silverware in the painting I would've said you have a knife and a fork. And sometimes it's those very small details of the tines facing the table that can bring a whole case together or crack a case or be that one detail that brings all the other pieces together.

VIDEOS

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