The Logical Philosopher

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Gladwell's *Blink* and rapid cognition


I always have 4 or 5 books on the go - and this week I've been reading Blink: The power of thinking without thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. It's premise is the thin slice, or ability to process information quickly at almost a sub-conscious level. Essentially it's our instincts at the first few moments of encountering something, or someone, may be right on target. Remember the last job interview you did where you decided in the first few seconds as to hire or not? That is what thin slice is based on.

The premise is interesting, and writing style is engaging enough that you can read it in one sitting. What's going for this book is that Gladwell actually points to examples (speed dating, gambling) where academic based field research has been done that offers support for the rapid cognition or intuition responses. At the current pace of the book I'm not sure if he will get to theories on how to notice your body's emotional or physical cues to capitalize on your thin slice skills more, but I could be wrong.

I'll post a more detailed review later but what I really am interested in is:

In your first 2 *blink* seconds on this blog - what were your impressions?

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