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Perceptual Fields: Gender & Depth
I have been playing a lot lately with perceptual fields. That is, trying to develop my awareness of situations out of their ordinary ruts so as to include new information. There are a number of good tricks and techniques you can try out with this which friends and I have been using here and there.
There is a fun one where you sit face to face with someone else. First, look each other in the eye. This is actually itself a pretty big challenge for most people. Most people will only make fleeting eye contact and then dart their eyes off in some other direction nervously. So first deal with that. This exercise can, I think, help you deal with that as well - albeit in a round-about way. Move to the side for a moment, so the other person is not in your direct line of sight. Pick an arbitrary point in space behind that person about 3-6 feet or so. Now, look them in the eyes again. And then, without moving, focus your visual awareness on where you imagine that point is behind them. That is, look through them to the point in space behind them. You cannot actually see it, but you will see and feel other interesting things happening.
First of all, if you are doing it right, it will begin to look like that person has three eyes. But that is not the beauty part of the trick. The part I like is that once you become skilled at this focusing behind a person (and both people are practicing this on each other at once or in turns), it can actually become hard to tell if that person is really looking at you, or looking past you. You begin to rely more on facial muscle cues and other minute perceptual things.
The point though, specifically, is not that you will necessarily experience this or that effect, but that you are actively experimenting with other ways to use your awareness. And when you do this, you begin to notice other patterns and possibilities.
Now here is a more practical observation, which I think will be especially useful to men - because I do not think most of them are even remotely aware of this. From my own experiences (and this obviously a broad statement), women and men use their eyes differently. That is, their typical experiences of the visual perceptual field is extremely different.
This is easiest to see in the context of attraction, flirtation, etc. When a man looks at a woman, he tends to focus his attention on a single point: that is, he stares directly at her. Usually for a lengthy period of time. I do not know if this is a cultural difference, a biological one, or a mix of each. But women do not seem to function this way (typically). When a woman looks at you in a crowded room, she does it from her peripheral vision - unless she is very bold. You might catch her looking directly at you, but it will only happen immediately upon first encounter, and it will only last for a single flash of an instant.
Practice this out and about in public. Practice just staring directly at people. Then practice stepping back in your visual field so that your eyes are acting as peripheral perceptual receivers, as opposed to arrows darting outwardly from target point to target. When you widen your perceptual field to include more of a gestalt (which I believe women tend to do to a much greater degree than men), you are going to naturally see how things fit together very differently. You will gain awareness into relationships of how things and how people fit together. You may also notice what I have noticed: that your eyes are drawn to sudden flashes of movement and bright colors. (Much like T. Rex in Jurassic Park, which I re-watched recently)
[Another way to think of eyes is: do not try and look at things. Decide from which direction you want to allow light to enter your eyes.]
Another entertaining use of this developing awareness: watch women interacting with other people at bars. You may notice (and men do this to, but towards a lesser degree) that they are communicating on different depth scales. They are talking to the person they are physically in front of. But they may also be signaling via body language to people across the room. The classic example of this is when a woman strokes her hair. Sure she may just be stroking her hair. But what this really is designed to do is simply to draw attention to that feature. And it may or may not be directed at the person who she is directly talking to. A broad physical movement such as this pays off much more at a greater distance though: people’s eyes register changes in motion. Motion draws your awareness towards it. Thus if someone makes a broad physical motion, they are more likely to be spotted from farther away than if they make smaller motions.
I am not, understand, attempting to make broad generalizations about gender interaction or say anything in particular about “women” by these observations. They are more simply things which I have observed and which I have been more consciously playing with, and it has been a lot of fun. I have noticed that developing my awareness of human interaction on these various scales and depths has made all of my interactions - male and female - infinitely richer and more interesting.
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August 22nd, 2007 at 5:32 am
Expanding the perceptual field outwards is interesting… letting the focus go and becoming aware on a different level of more things. I have two suggestions:
1.) Six beers and a long walk home through an interesting neighbourhood. Only your expanded peripheral senses will get you home in one piece!
Fortunately the beer dims the conscious mind and the fear sharpens the senses.
2.) (More seriously) Somewhere quiet outdoors. Up a mountain, or in quiet woodland. I used to go looking for red squirrels in local woods. The trick is to find a spot and just stand. After a while it feels like a bubble of perception is expanding outwards through the woods, including more and more things in it, with less directed focus. You start to hear things you’d think are inaudible.
Up a mountain in fog and a rainstorm is another thing. You start to see different things. Things that are partly inside, partly outside. Feet in boots. Boots on scree. Breath in body, rain on face. The biting grey starts to eat the insulation from the soul; every internal feeling is heightened, and external focus fades to encompass the whole. This is the time for seeing different things, as the self fights against being sucked into the numbing greyness: glimpses of clarity, within and without…
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:31 am
“The classic example of this is when a woman strokes her hair. Sure she may just be stroking her hair. But what this really is designed to do is simply to draw attention to that feature. And it may or may not be directed at the person who she is directly talking to. A broad physical movement such as this pays off much more at a greater distance though: people’s eyes register changes in motion. Motion draws your awareness towards it. Thus if someone makes a broad physical motion, they are more likely to be spotted from farther away than if they make smaller motions. ”
grenade > rifle, I think.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:29 am
I wonder if some of these differences point towards hunter/gatherer behavioral differences in early humans.
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:57 pm
The “target conscious” nature of male perception surely has some root in early human development. That’s pretty clear, I think.
As to modern perception — I think it is so heavily affected by mood, consciousness, state of mind, etc…I wonder how easy it is to just “turn on”, as you suggest. All those tricks you mention require conscious effort — and once you do them consciously, you’re not doing them properly, if you know what I mean. That’s the real trouble with mind-body stuff…Your thoughts travel slower than the speed of light (their electric signals, but in a biological medium). It all may seem instantaneous, but it isn’t.
I’m still going to a bar tonight to try a few experiment, though…
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I’ve been meaning to tell this story since you started on the physical development thing. I met a man a few years ago who had learned martial arts from a man whose purpose was to teach him to use his skills to kill. (Not like Jason Bourne, more like mad dog killer.) He told me he saw a video of a monkey fighting a dog. The monkey won. (Apparently there are a lot of these types of videos around.) The way he described it I could tell he had actually seen this video. This man told me that the monkey amazed everyone in the room by immediately turning into a very skilled fighter. He used this to illustrate that martial arts are programmed into our brains. I had to leave a comment when I saw the article below too. Gruesome but true.
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/07/24/monkey-v-dog-v-wikipedia/
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Oh, yeah, the subject of the post, right, the subject, ok. Sometimes women have conversations with men and it seems like we are talking about two different events. Sometimes at work we have to piece together exactly what happened, when, what reasoning was used etc. and explain it in a way that it can be read and understood by someone who may have absolutely no knowledge of or interest in what happened.
The women usually hate it if there are too many men because we think they leave out the most important details. The men think the women aren’t being realistic enough because we’re not focussed on CYA thinking first and foremost. It’s like if you even allow yourself to think about something that could be interpreted negatively you’re not a team player but they really don’t have enough information to make a decision. The women see this rah, rah, kind of thing as weakness. Sort of like “You can’t handle the truth”.
August 22nd, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Not necessarily. It is simply a matter of building the muscle memory and habituating yourself to a new way of behaving. Then it becomes totally natural.
What is CYA thinking?
I would be curious to hear other perspectives on perceptual differences between men and women. I think the point about valuing different types of detail/information is an important one.
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Lucky you. It’s better to not know some words. Cover Your Ass. “Who cares what really happened let’s get our lie together.” Only now you’re stuck with the logic behind the lie so no progress, nothing makes sense. I’m not trying to bash men here. When women do this it’s called cattyness, forming cliques, jealousy etc. When men do it’s called team building. From my perspective men seem more decisive because they take fewer facts into consideration when making a decision. No matter what you do your job is people, even if it’s only your coworkers. Men form a personality cult and when their boss stumbles it’s off with his head. Women’s friendships are stronger because they’re very tangled up with details from all areas of life. The strongest male friendships come from outside forces, war, sports etc. It’s sad to see, poor men.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:17 pm
I often see women acting and speaking in such a way as to make it seem like they actively hate their so-called best friends! I am not sure if this is a perceptual difference or what it is though…
August 22nd, 2007 at 7:13 pm
:( You’re right about that one. It’s pure hate at the time but it doesn’t always last. And, it’s an example of how dysfunctional a culture we live in. If I’m that knotted up with you then you can affect me in ways that I can’t control. I want to change but you won’t let me or I have to change to keep up with you etc. Men compete with each other differently and have different outlets for their aggression. Very few women would decide to seek enlightenment through boxing. It seems like we’re talking about something petty but it’s not. If your whole world looks like this how do you change anything, see a different way of being? If you are supposed to give up the things of this world and that means something different for half of the population it makes a difference.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Oh shit, lyrics for the second (and *real*) version of the musical just constellated out of what you wrote above:
>>COLLABORATORS: take note.
(A Duet, sung by {probably} leading male and female roles)
First Voice:
“I want to change
but you won’t let me!”
Second Voice:
“I need to change
just to keep up with you…”
Both, looking away from each other:
“But I can not change
and it’s all because of youuuuuuu” (note held, curtain draws closed - [end of first act?])
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Cool. And I spent the whole ride home from work thinking that this was me at my most inarticulate.
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:15 pm
speaking of the musical (reference pointing this for posterity):
*
i think i just figured out the master scheme on how to make this all into a cultural phenomenon which will give everyone i know a job doing something they love for the rest of their lives.
it all kind of goes back to JC saying:
“Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am.”
[His name is Thank You Thank You: two people celebrating one another] and breaks down from there into:
gathertogetherin - cultural movement of “life is a musical”-type musical performance groups featuring networks of friends and some semi-professional performers and people living and/or working together in “shared creative respect and mutually inspired abundance”
gathertogetherins - grassroots community organization for social networking etc of people coming together to put on these performances and classes with skills associated to performances: body awareness, creative movement, performance, etc
gathertogetherinc - business corporate law tech etc division
gathertogethereens - fashion, clothes, costumes, accessories
gathertogetherinn - permanent performance space, farm, brewery, hostel, ranch
I just bought fifteen domain names to cover all of those. I know how all the pieces fit together now. One massive linguistic and organizational download.