Observation Skills – team activities
I like to do testing exercises with my team. Below is a list of links to various activities I have done with the team at some point in time. I usually turn these things into an interactive session. I thought I would share my list with you in case you want to do some of them with your team (or by yourself)
Observation skills
Which way is she spinning?
Cartoon
Powers of Observation
Activity – watch videos and answer questions at the end
New TV Show
Observation – General Link
http://www.smart-kit.com/scategory/brain-art/>Brain Art
Are the two blocks different colors?
How many differences can you find?
Spot the Differences
Activity for Team
How many F’s?
Activity
Optical Illusion
Cartoon
Perception
Video
The Amazing Color Changing Card trick
Where possible with these exercises I get the team write out their observations before we go into discussions about what they see. This is to help prevent certain biases from showing up – mainly confirmation and hindsight biases
Confirmation bias, according to wikipedia, is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions and avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs.
Hindsight bias, sometimes called the I-knew-it-all-along effect, is the inclination to see events that have occurred as more predictable than they in fact were before they took place. Hindsight bias has been demonstrated experimentally in a variety of settings, including politics, games and medicine. In psychological experiments of hindsight bias, subjects also tend to remember their predictions of future events as having been stronger than they actually were, in those cases where those predictions turn out correct.”
When we did these exercises it made for some really interesting discussions – especiallly the spinning dancer and the different color blocks. Doing these exercises can help you become aware of (and possibly manage) confirmation and hindsight bias.
Places you might find more information and exercises
Inattentional Blindness
Selective Attention
