Читать книгу The Communication Playbook - Teri Kwal Gamble - Страница 150

Blinders on a horse reduce the number of visual stimuli it receives. Similarly, we put figurative blinders on ourselves. The following exercise illustrates the concept of blindering as a perceptual hindrance: Attempt to draw four straight lines that will connect each of the dots in Figure 3.8. Do this without lifting your pencil or pen from the page or retracing a line.

Did you find the exercise challenging? Most do, but why? The problem imposes only one restriction—that you connect the dots with four straight lines without lifting your pencil or pen from the page or backtracking over a line. Most of us, however, add another restriction. After examining the dots, we assume that the figure to be formed must be a square. Actually, no such restriction exists, and once you realize this, the solution becomes clear. (Check the answer in the Answer Key at the back of the book.) In effect, you were “blindered” by the image of a square as you tried to solve the problem. Wearing blinders may help horses, but they dramatically limit humans. Blindering is a habit that forces us to see in limited ways. It often leads to undesirable actions or prevents us from finding solutions outside of our narrow viewpoints.

Figure 3.8