Attentional Blindness [Storytime Saturdays]
This is one of the concepts you must know as a developer. Don't overlook it.
Happy Saturday my fantastico,
By the time you receive this, I will be gone? Gone where you ask? I’m going to be exploring an abandoned mine in Alaska. It’s supposed to be haunted, so I will be spending the night there. Super excited about that. Since it is such a dark place, I figured it would be thematically appropriate to talk about (in)attentional blindness. This is an extremely important concept in psychology that you should know about.
Highlights
When it comes to cognitive biases that will hamper your software development career, there are few that match this. In this post, we will cover the following concepts-
What is inattentional blindness- Your mind will filter out certain stimuli to focus on what it deems important.
Why it exists- Saving your mental resources. And it benefits you a lot for focusing. Think about how you’re focusing on these words right now, instead of how your clothes feel against your skin.
Where it can cause problems- Biases are a double-edged sword.They can help you quickly filter through large amounts of information. However, they will also cause you to miss important connections and ideas.
How to counter the blindness- diverse set of experiences, taking a step back, and pausing. More details in the article
This post will contain a personal story of how this attentional blindness led to me messing up my first-ever ‘senior’ interview. I focused too much on one avenue and not enough on everything else. To know more about that, and how you can avoid it, keep reading.
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