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The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

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THE BOOK OF TELLS<br />

early this morning, and that your secretary had been crying<br />

because her boyfriend walked out on her last night?<br />

<strong>The</strong>re are several reasons why you failed to spot these<br />

tell-tale signs. Like most other people, you're quick to<br />

notice changes to your physical environment, but slow to<br />

spot changes in the people around you. It's not that they're<br />

unimportant - in fact they mean a lot to you. It's just that<br />

you've come to take them for granted. You're comforted by<br />

the knowledge that they don't change, and that - like the<br />

characters in the film Groundhog Day - they're always<br />

there, doing the same thing day after day.<br />

This is all linked to what psychologists call 'change<br />

blindness'. Change blindness takes several forms, one <strong>of</strong><br />

which is the inability to notice how people have changed.<br />

In a clever experiment conducted by Daniel Simons and<br />

Dan Levin at Harvard, the experimenter approached<br />

strangers on the campus and innocently asked them for<br />

directions. 1 Imagine for a moment that you're one <strong>of</strong> the<br />

unsuspecting subjects who took part in the experiment.<br />

You're walking across the campus when a stranger<br />

approaches you and asks you for directions. While you're<br />

talking to him, two workmen walk between you and the<br />

stranger, carrying a large wooden door. Naturally you feel<br />

irritated by this interruption, but after the workmen have<br />

moved on you continue giving directions to the stranger.<br />

When you've finished, the stranger thanks you and informs<br />

you that you have just taken part in an experiment.<br />

'Did you notice anything different after the two men<br />

passed by with the door?' he asks. 'No,' you reply, 'I didn't<br />

notice anything at all.' He then explains that he's not the<br />

same man who originally approached you for directions.<br />

<strong>The</strong> original man walked <strong>of</strong>f behind the door, leaving the<br />

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