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Vlad!
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« on: May 03, 2009, 12:03:15 PM » |
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So for several months I had a really long goatee...not quite ZZ Top level, but getting there. For Moustache May I cut it all off. It's surprising to me how few people notice at first. I don't think of myself as particularly observant, but I notice when dudes change their facial hair (it may be a guy/girl thing, since I'd say about 80% of my male friends notice quickly, while only about 20% of my female friends do).
I'm not one of those people who demands everybody comment on a new "look" or anything, but it's interesting how our brains will fill in details without actually noticing the differences.
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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enemy anemone
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« Reply #1 on: May 03, 2009, 12:52:59 PM » |
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I had a teacher who always wore purple and blue eyeshadow. one day she was running late and didn't put it on till she arrived at school. a classmate who was there early commented to her "you're not wearing your glasses today!" (the teacher hardly ever wore glasses.)
is it that your female friends don't notice right away (they say something later) or that they don't say anything at all? I notice things like that, but I usually don't say anything because my initial reaction is that the person no longer looks like himself, and it is somewhat unnerving.
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Vlad!
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« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2009, 02:00:36 PM » |
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is it that your female friends don't notice right away (they say something later) or that they don't say anything at all? I notice things like that, but I usually don't say anything because my initial reaction is that the person no longer looks like himself, and it is somewhat unnerving.
No, it's that they don't notice at all. The reason I can assert this is because church went like this: Male friend A: I like what you did with your beard Female friend A: Oh my gosh, Nathan shaved his beard! I didn't even notice! Then female friends B through G arrive in succession and A feels the need to ask each one "look at Nathan and see what's different". None of them got it, and every one of them said "did you get new glasses?" (apparently glasses are the default "something changed about you" comment). |
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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bethany
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« Reply #3 on: May 03, 2009, 03:20:53 PM » |
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I feel like facial hair changes are hard to track, because they often are in such nebulous in-between stages (is that a beard or did he just not shave today?). I'll generally notice when something is gone (e.g. a man who usually has a beard goes clean-shaven) but not usually when something is added (e.g. a little goatee).
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enemy anemone
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« Reply #4 on: May 03, 2009, 06:09:03 PM » |
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Then female friends B through G arrive in succession and A feels the need to ask each one "look at Nathan and see what's different". None of them got it, and every one of them said "did you get new glasses?"
that's so weird! I can't imagine not noticing. or if I didn't notice it would be because I'm like "where's Nathan? and who is New Guy?"  |
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Vlad!
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« Reply #5 on: May 03, 2009, 07:39:10 PM » |
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I feel like facial hair changes are hard to track, because they often are in such nebulous in-between stages (is that a beard or did he just not shave today?). I'll generally notice when something is gone (e.g. a man who usually has a beard goes clean-shaven) but not usually when something is added (e.g. a little goatee).
Yeah, I agree with you there, though occasional levels of scruff in itself counts as a facial hair choice in my book (my former roommate asserted that all engineers should be scruffy and tried to follow that precept himself whenever possible). I normally don't expect people to pick up minor changes, but when you have a four-inch-long goatee and you cut it off, you sort of expect it to be obvious. |
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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Vlad!
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« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2009, 04:35:22 PM » |
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More data on the issue: a male team member who is aware of the beard situation asked me today if I had gotten new frames. Also, a male co-worker commented that he hadn't noticed until we started talking about it.
Now, I did get new frames back in December, as I do every year since my vision plan pays for a new pair of glasses a year and I lose it if I don't use it, but these are people who see me several times a week.
(Interestingly, at the time I got new glasses only two people--both female--noticed it and mentioned it to me. One of those people was also one of the ones who said "new glasses?" when trying to figure out what was different, but I neglected to ask her if she thought I had gotten new new glasses or if she had just forgotten that she noticed them before).
This also reminds me of one time back in high school when I was wearing my (collared, button-down) shirt backwards for the specific purpose of annoying someone. When she entered the room, my cohort in crime said "notice anything different about Nathan?" and she pondered for a second or two and said "new shoes?".
I think in general our brains make a whole lot of stuff up that we just blindly accept. I remember reading at some point (ironically and perhaps appropriately I don't remember where) that we don't really have enough mental power to handle visually processing everything we look at for changes. We just glance over things when we're not expecting them to have changed. I notice this myself, because I've walked into my cube and totally ignored a message written on my whiteboard in orange pen saying "I stopped by and you weren't here; call me" because I just wasn't expecting it to be there. My hindbrain was focused on getting me to my chair without incident and my forebrain was busily trying to solve some problem that I was working on and would be working on again once I sat down, and there wasn't anything left to notice an abnormality in my surroundings.
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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enemy anemone
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« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2009, 04:51:38 PM » |
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huh. I'm starting to think that you have powers of invisibility or something.
I read somewhere (maybe it was a book that you have read and commented on) about a little experiment that involved someone asking a stranger for directions. while the giver-of-directions was talking, something large came between the people and the asker-of-directions was swapped for someone else. the giver-of-directions never even noticed. WHAT. there was another experiment where someone was asked to choose the more attractive of two faces on cards. they picked one and then the cards were turned over and secretly swapped. then the card was turned over again and the person was asked why they chose that face. they never even noticed they were explaining why they chose the face they didn't even choose!
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« Last Edit: May 04, 2009, 04:55:49 PM by schilleriana »
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Vlad!
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« Reply #8 on: May 04, 2009, 05:02:59 PM » |
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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enemy anemone
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« Reply #9 on: May 04, 2009, 05:15:29 PM » |
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I wonder if my powers of observation are better than my memory. I seem to think so...but who knows...
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Vlad!
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« Reply #10 on: May 04, 2009, 05:22:10 PM » |
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Heh, it's not that my memory is so much better. I just happen to be good at remembering things that I wrote (since I wrote a comment on that article in Google Reader) and know how to search for them.
(Side note: this is why I took notes in college. I would never actually look at the notes I took, but the act of writing the information down made me remember it. Very crazy how our brains work).
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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enemy anemone
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« Reply #11 on: May 04, 2009, 05:32:52 PM » |
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I thought it might have been an article you shared in reader so I looked there briefly, but I only thought of that computer brain one with the footnotes on how our brains mess up. I remember that one because I commented on it and looked at it more than once.
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enemy anemone
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« Reply #12 on: May 04, 2009, 05:47:12 PM » |
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I'm laughing at the title of this new thread because I can't help but think about not noticing things ON our faces.
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Vlad!
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« Reply #13 on: May 04, 2009, 06:30:02 PM » |
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I'm laughing at the title of this new thread because I can't help but think about not noticing things ON our faces.
Yeah, I was going to point out the pun, but I didn't have enough space in the thread title to do so. |
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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Vlad!
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« Reply #14 on: June 04, 2009, 01:16:35 PM » |
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Additional data:
Yesterday some friends and I were playing frisbee, and as is my wont during physical activity I was wearing a bandanna over my hair. A female friend (who has seen me many times over the course of the month) said "hey, you cut your beard!". I have derived two possible conclusions from this:
* Women tend to use the hair as a primary identifying characteristic more than men do, and only when the hair is obscured or partially obscured do they observe other facial characteristics.
* When something obvious has changed (such as a big red bandanna on the head), it triggers the brain to do a "refresh" of the entire face and thus the viewer picks up changes which went unnoticed before.
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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enemy anemone
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« Reply #15 on: June 04, 2009, 01:45:58 PM » |
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the second one makes more sense to me...but the whole thing of not-noticing doesn't make sense to me.
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Vlad!
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« Reply #16 on: June 10, 2009, 02:46:38 PM » |
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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murlough23
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« Reply #17 on: June 11, 2009, 01:54:34 PM » |
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A friend of mine during my college years claimed that I was about as observant as a brick wall, so I'm all over this thread!
I've never grown enough facial hair for it to be noticeable by anyone other than my wife when I shave it (and she only notices it by touch), so I haven't really participated in this experiment, but I have two co-workers who got rid of their beards/goatees/soul patches lately, and I definitely noticed.
I'm not sure if this is related, but I really hate it when women get like an inch of their hair trimmed and then use it as a test to see if men will notice.
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