Blink 2

Read Pages 67-85: The Chapter entitled, Seven Seconds in The Bronx.
Then, go through each section and explain how it applies to our study of Perception. Just write 2-3 sentences and be sure to provide a quote to support your argument.

1.Three Fatal Mistakes
This chapter talks about 3 officers thin-slicing a black man in the Bronx. They made several split-second judgements without reason that were big mistakes- Gladwell says "Carroll sized him up and in that instant decided he looked suspicious."(69). We have been studying how people make split-second judgements based on past experiences and pre-associations, and this is what these policemen did.

2. The Theory of Mind Reading
In this chapter, there is a professor who can read people's faces, their wrinkles, bumps and uses of certain facial muscles, to tell how they are feeling, what they are thinking, and occasionally even what kind of person they are. "Tomkins believed that faces... held valuable clues to inner emotions and motivations."(70) We talked a bit in class about how in knowledge by acquaintance relies partially on reading someone's facial/body language over periods of time, again and again, to be acquainted with them, their moods, and their reactions. Our perceptions of people's moods and personalities are in part formed by what they communicate with their faces.

3. The naked Face
This section explains how there are voluntary and involuntary facial expressions that we make, some so microscopic they can be detected "only if electrical sensors are attached to the face. But it's always there."(74). It also describes the tests that have been done to form the theory that emotions can start FROM the face, not just be reflected in it. We discussed this possibility in class, and it goes back to our perception of things that are going on (how our emotions make us perceive things in different ways) and how maybe there are other things that can affect our perception, like what we are doing with our face.

4. A Man, A Woman and a Lightswitch
This chapter tells of how an autistic person perceives things; they see people just as other objects, no more important than a lightswitch. "because he lacks one very basic ability - the ability to mind-read - he can... come to a conclusion that is socially completely and catastrophically wrong."(77) We need this ability to "mind-read" to be able to tell people's feelings and emotions, and a number of other things...

5. Arguing with a Dog
Our senses of perception can be altered or narrowed in certain conditions. One police officer said of himself during a shooting:"I didn't hear a thing, not one thing. Alan had fired one round when I shot my first pair, but I didn't hear him shoot.... I don't even remember pushing myself up."(78). Your body can narrow your senses to deal with the threat or stressing thing in front of you, which can be good, but if it goes too much, than bad things start happening, your brain can partially shut down, you can be mind-blind, etc. They describe trying to talk to an extremely frightened person like trying to argue with a dog, because they don't have the full use of a normal human brain.

6. Running Out of White Space
On page 80 it says "'When you remove time'...'you are subject to the lowest-quality intuitive reaction.'" This relates to the IAT test and how, because you are forced to make decisions in a fraction of a second, you are more likely to fall prey to prior associations and worse judgements.

7. Something Told Me...
We talked some in class about whether or not our mind-reading skills can be improved and if we can escape the typical mistakes of jumping to conclusions based on those wrong judgements. This chapter talks about that as well, and they argue that we CAN improve on this by preparing ourselves with "training" to respond to high stress situations calmly and be able to think through things in our brains in a matter of seconds. "look at how the officer's experience and skill allowed him to stretch out that fraction of time, to slow the situation down, to keep gathering information until the last possible moment."(84)

8. Tragedy on Wheeler Ave.
The truth about the Diallo incident was that he didn't HAVE a gun and the police officers perceived his WALLET as a gun in their stressed faction-of-a-second decision before they opened fire on Diallo. It says of the police officer, "He's not mind-reading now. He's effectively autistic."(84). Oh, how wrong our perception can be...