It's been over a month since all of Norway went into lockdown, meaning that I teach my classes and do my research from home (and defended my dissertation over Zoom!) while my wife and I at the same time are running a full-time homeschool and kindergarten. Luckily, we have a trampoline in our garden, so the kids get plenty of fun and exercise. Getting rather tired of jumping myself, I invented a game where I could lie down and throw soft balls at the kids, and they have to either dodge or hit them out of the way. My 7-year old son was getting pretty good at it, so I upped the game a bit. I would throw a slow looping ball towards his head (again, they were soft) and a fast-ball towards his stomach. He got frustrated because he could only focus on and knock one ball out of the way at a time, and then the other ball would hit him as they arrived at the same time. "I can't do this!" he cried, and then I gave him a lesson I had learned from juggling:
"You have to learn not to focus."
At first he was a bit puzzled, so I explained that he could look past me to the bench on the lawn. Soon, he was doing double-blocks like a ninja and felt like he had just unlocked a superhero skill, and he was right. Learning not to focus is a skill that is crucial to success in many arenas. I mean this both in a literal and metaphorical sense, and the skill is called indirect vision.
Indirect vision is defined as "vision resulting from rays of light falling upon peripheral parts of the retina" or "vision as it occurs outside the point of fixation." Simply put, it is all the visual input your eye gets and processes without focusing on an object. This is quite a significant amount. When you focus on something, your field of vision is about 5 degrees, whereas when you don't focus your field of vision is 200-220 degrees.
You can experience this yourself. Look straight ahead and have a person behind you move an object from behind you to in front of you. Alert them the moment you can detect movement, and tell them to stop. You will see that you detected the object already as it was about 90 degrees from the direction you were looking in. This is because our eyes are not just holes. The eye does actually extend out of the body (though not to such a mad extent as the house fly, which does have almost 360 degree vision but can't focus).
(Image from Paul Savage - https://www.flickr.com/photos/45202571@N00/60833726/)
This unfocused vision gives you less quality of perception, but much greater quantity. Indirect vision is excellent at (a) recognition of well-known structures and forms, (b) identification of similar forms and movements, and (c) delivery of sensations which form the background of detailed visual perception.
It is an ability that all humans have, but it is an elite skill to recognize, trust, and fully utilize the functions of this ability. This is especially true in elite sports where the athletes have to keep track of many moving parts at the same time. Here is a prominent example.
Football: Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United)
Since his arrival at Manchester United in January, Bruno Fernandes has been on fire. With him in the team, Manchester United have not lost a single game and have taken more points than anyone else in the Premier League except Liverpool. One of the key attributes about him that have been praised by pundits, teammates, and his manager is that he is "one or two steps ahead of everyone else." Bruno always seems to know what he should do with the ball before he gets it, and the key to that is that he frequently scans the football field. Just a glance over his shoulder, but he quickly perceives and processes the key threats and passing opportunities. How does he do this? By relying on indirect vision.
It was previously believed that it takes the eye about 100 milliseconds to detect an image, but new research from MIT has shown that your eyes can successfully detect and identify images in only 13 milliseconds, and that limit was only determined because it was impossible for the computer monitor in the experiment to shift the images shown to the research subjects quicker. This means the eye can process almost a shocking 77 images per second rather than the previously believed 10 images per second. The lead scientist theorized "one reason for the subjects’ better performance in this study may be that they were able to practice fast detection as the images were presented progressively faster, even though each image was unfamiliar" (Trafton). The images were also familiar shapes rather than abstract art.
This is how Bruno is able to pull off this impressive feat. Although indirect vision gives less quality, it is good at (a) recognition of well-known structures and forms and (b) identification of similar forms and movements. This is one reason why it is important for football players that the kits of the two teams are not too similar. Since they have to rely a lot on their indirect vision, they want to be able to just have to detect the right color to know if they can play the pass to them or need to avoid them. The best playmakers are able to detect patterns of play and movement in milliseconds and can make snap decisions about how to progress the ball up the field. Everybody has indirect vision, but the best players have learned to rely on it instinctively and can match the input with their tactical and experiential knowledge to create magic.
The same is true of elite performers in speed chess: they keep most of the chess board in their indirect vision and can accurately perceive and replicate the moves made by the opponent in milliseconds. Again, this is because the moves, the chess board, and the pieces are all familiar and they can tap into those trained patterns to process the data. For trained practitioners, indirect vision can tell them everything they need to know in order to act.
Learning Not To Focus Your Mind
This ability transfers to our mental patterns as well. It's a common misconception that our mind is a completely separate thing from our bodies. Rather, we think through our bodies. The senses and processes of our bodies gave our minds all the input they had to develop and learn the patterns of life. We express what our mind does based on what we can do with our bodies, showing the same relationship: We "digest" information, we "grasp" a concept, and we "wrestle" with a problem, describing actions of our stomach, hand, and muscles. This does not mean that the mind can be reduced to the body, but it shows that there is a strong relationship. This is especially true about our eyes and ability to see: the primary sense humans have had to rely upon for their survival. Our neural patterns mirror the input they receive from foveal or "central" vision and indirect vision.
We talk about "focus," which is a function of our eyes, and equate it with narrow and intense concentration, but we often disregard what happens when we are not focusing and devalue it with terms such as "unconcentrated," "unfocused," or "scatter-brained." A lot of time is spent on teaching people to "focus" and even to "hyperfocus," as exemplified in the video below.
It is not my intention here to disparage that work, but focusing A can often lead to the neglect of B, and I want to point out some of the things this focus on focus misses and why learning not to focus at times can be crucial to success. However, first I have to make it clear what I am describing and clear up one likely objection: not focusing is NOT the same thing as inattention or laziness, it's just a different kind of attention or work. Indirect vision is "focused," as it were, on a broader field of vision which may pick up less details but covers more ground.
I could expound more on this principle, but here are a few examples:
1. The Observer Effect and Early Childhood Development
You can't observe something or "focus" on something without changing it. According to quantum mechanics, even subatomic particles change their nature based on the focus of an observer. While that might just be a theoretical reality, this is definitely true in social science studies such as psychology, and it is also the case in parenting. Many parents are hyperfocused on their kids, making great sacrifices of time and money to make sure that all their needs are cared for and that they have no limits to their development. However, sometimes it is that very focus that can be one of the greatest impediments to their development.
Imagine there are two toddler's playing together. They are relating now to somebody at their own level, without large differences in size, power, or ability. As soon as an adult enters the picture, the dynamic between the toddlers sometimes changes almost instantly. A source of attention and adoration, a greater power, and the "bringer of food and changer of nappies" has now entered their universe.
The same is true of a child concentrating (focusing) individually on a task and hitting a barrier. On their own, a new part of their brain starts problem-solving, but with the focused attention of a parent the answer is only a cry for help away. It's like trying to learn maths with the answer sheet in front of you.
I am not saying that parents don't have a responsibility to model appropriate behavior, help the children learn how to solve problems, or (most importantly) keep the child safe from too great physical danger. What I am trying to point out is that there is a need, place, and time for a different kind of attention: the quick look around the corner to make sure the toddler is alright as they stack bricks into towers and knock them down, looking out the window now and then as the kids and their friends learn how to play a new game together, allowing them spaces where parents do not intrude or interrupt except in cases of emergency. One good unsupervised act is worth twenty supervised ones, and the magic of unstructured play needs to be undisturbed from the too focused presence of parents. It's similar to "pulling up a flower to see how the roots are doing. Put another way, too many anxious openings of the oven door, and the cake falls instead of rising. Moreover, enforced change usually does not last, while productive enduring can ingrain permanent change" (Neal A. Maxwell, "Endure It Well").
2. Management and Micro-managing
When people without experience in leadership get promoted to leadership they are in danger of becoming micro-managers. They want to put in a lot of effort, and very often they think that effort has to come in the form of focused attention to each of the people they are supposed to be leading. While this can do some good in certain instances, very often these leaders tend to wear out themselves and the people they are supposed to lead by their excessive focus. Moreover, any gains in productivity are likely to disappear again as soon as the effort is reduced or another manager is brought in.
The more sustainable model is one who leads with indirect vision, recognizing patterns and keeping an eye on the processes going on, but also knows to step back and let a natural good dynamic develop, adding some encouragement here and some help there. This model is more like the farmer or gardner who keeps an overview of the processes going on but knows not to interfere too much in them.
3. General vs. Specific Knowledge
In academia, and the sciences in particular, specialization or hyperfocusing is the name of the game. It has come to the point where even different branches of physics or chemistry may have little understanding of the work that is going on in the other branches. Generalists are inherently suspicious, crossing from one discipline to another is seen as indicative of lack of depth or discipline, and a wide spread of publications is often punished in tenure or promotion reviews. Yet some very innovative insights have come from people who were able to cross the disciplinary boundaries, and this has often been the birthplace of new disciplines. John von Neumann started in mathematics but also became a foundational figure in game theory, nuclear physics, computer science, and international relations. Kenneth Burke felt uncomfortable with the rigidness of academic disciplines and therefore never completed a degree or stayed teaching at any academic institution for too long, and he has become an authority in communication, rhetoric and composition, literature, and many of the social sciences, influencing figures such as Goffmann, Francis Ferguson, Renè Girard, and many others.
I am usually skeptical of conferences with too broad topics, since these can often be predatory, but in the midst of this hyperspecialization there is an important place for conferences such as TED. Here, people from many walks of life meet together and listen short presentations of inspiring and interesting stories and projects prepared for a general audience. Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, describes how he at the first day of his first conference started out amused, then confused as there seemed to be no common thread to what they all were saying, and then his mind started to cross-polinate ideas from all these different areas into new and remarkable insights. He could only get to this point by taking in a "wide vision" of impressions and ideas without focusing too much on each individual one, and that brought him much more than any conference he had ever been to before. He became aware of "the interconnectedness of knowledge," even in an age of specialization.
Like my son, we often encounter situations where a lot of balls are coming towards us at the same time, and the best way to respond to these challenges long-term may be learning not to focus on each one of them too much, but keep our eyes on the bigger picture.
"You have to learn not to focus."
At first he was a bit puzzled, so I explained that he could look past me to the bench on the lawn. Soon, he was doing double-blocks like a ninja and felt like he had just unlocked a superhero skill, and he was right. Learning not to focus is a skill that is crucial to success in many arenas. I mean this both in a literal and metaphorical sense, and the skill is called indirect vision.
Indirect vision is defined as "vision resulting from rays of light falling upon peripheral parts of the retina" or "vision as it occurs outside the point of fixation." Simply put, it is all the visual input your eye gets and processes without focusing on an object. This is quite a significant amount. When you focus on something, your field of vision is about 5 degrees, whereas when you don't focus your field of vision is 200-220 degrees.
You can experience this yourself. Look straight ahead and have a person behind you move an object from behind you to in front of you. Alert them the moment you can detect movement, and tell them to stop. You will see that you detected the object already as it was about 90 degrees from the direction you were looking in. This is because our eyes are not just holes. The eye does actually extend out of the body (though not to such a mad extent as the house fly, which does have almost 360 degree vision but can't focus).
This unfocused vision gives you less quality of perception, but much greater quantity. Indirect vision is excellent at (a) recognition of well-known structures and forms, (b) identification of similar forms and movements, and (c) delivery of sensations which form the background of detailed visual perception.
It is an ability that all humans have, but it is an elite skill to recognize, trust, and fully utilize the functions of this ability. This is especially true in elite sports where the athletes have to keep track of many moving parts at the same time. Here is a prominent example.
Football: Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United)
Since his arrival at Manchester United in January, Bruno Fernandes has been on fire. With him in the team, Manchester United have not lost a single game and have taken more points than anyone else in the Premier League except Liverpool. One of the key attributes about him that have been praised by pundits, teammates, and his manager is that he is "one or two steps ahead of everyone else." Bruno always seems to know what he should do with the ball before he gets it, and the key to that is that he frequently scans the football field. Just a glance over his shoulder, but he quickly perceives and processes the key threats and passing opportunities. How does he do this? By relying on indirect vision.
It was previously believed that it takes the eye about 100 milliseconds to detect an image, but new research from MIT has shown that your eyes can successfully detect and identify images in only 13 milliseconds, and that limit was only determined because it was impossible for the computer monitor in the experiment to shift the images shown to the research subjects quicker. This means the eye can process almost a shocking 77 images per second rather than the previously believed 10 images per second. The lead scientist theorized "one reason for the subjects’ better performance in this study may be that they were able to practice fast detection as the images were presented progressively faster, even though each image was unfamiliar" (Trafton). The images were also familiar shapes rather than abstract art.
This is how Bruno is able to pull off this impressive feat. Although indirect vision gives less quality, it is good at (a) recognition of well-known structures and forms and (b) identification of similar forms and movements. This is one reason why it is important for football players that the kits of the two teams are not too similar. Since they have to rely a lot on their indirect vision, they want to be able to just have to detect the right color to know if they can play the pass to them or need to avoid them. The best playmakers are able to detect patterns of play and movement in milliseconds and can make snap decisions about how to progress the ball up the field. Everybody has indirect vision, but the best players have learned to rely on it instinctively and can match the input with their tactical and experiential knowledge to create magic.
Learning Not To Focus Your Mind
This ability transfers to our mental patterns as well. It's a common misconception that our mind is a completely separate thing from our bodies. Rather, we think through our bodies. The senses and processes of our bodies gave our minds all the input they had to develop and learn the patterns of life. We express what our mind does based on what we can do with our bodies, showing the same relationship: We "digest" information, we "grasp" a concept, and we "wrestle" with a problem, describing actions of our stomach, hand, and muscles. This does not mean that the mind can be reduced to the body, but it shows that there is a strong relationship. This is especially true about our eyes and ability to see: the primary sense humans have had to rely upon for their survival. Our neural patterns mirror the input they receive from foveal or "central" vision and indirect vision.
We talk about "focus," which is a function of our eyes, and equate it with narrow and intense concentration, but we often disregard what happens when we are not focusing and devalue it with terms such as "unconcentrated," "unfocused," or "scatter-brained." A lot of time is spent on teaching people to "focus" and even to "hyperfocus," as exemplified in the video below.
It is not my intention here to disparage that work, but focusing A can often lead to the neglect of B, and I want to point out some of the things this focus on focus misses and why learning not to focus at times can be crucial to success. However, first I have to make it clear what I am describing and clear up one likely objection: not focusing is NOT the same thing as inattention or laziness, it's just a different kind of attention or work. Indirect vision is "focused," as it were, on a broader field of vision which may pick up less details but covers more ground.
I could expound more on this principle, but here are a few examples:
1. The Observer Effect and Early Childhood Development
You can't observe something or "focus" on something without changing it. According to quantum mechanics, even subatomic particles change their nature based on the focus of an observer. While that might just be a theoretical reality, this is definitely true in social science studies such as psychology, and it is also the case in parenting. Many parents are hyperfocused on their kids, making great sacrifices of time and money to make sure that all their needs are cared for and that they have no limits to their development. However, sometimes it is that very focus that can be one of the greatest impediments to their development.
Imagine there are two toddler's playing together. They are relating now to somebody at their own level, without large differences in size, power, or ability. As soon as an adult enters the picture, the dynamic between the toddlers sometimes changes almost instantly. A source of attention and adoration, a greater power, and the "bringer of food and changer of nappies" has now entered their universe.
The same is true of a child concentrating (focusing) individually on a task and hitting a barrier. On their own, a new part of their brain starts problem-solving, but with the focused attention of a parent the answer is only a cry for help away. It's like trying to learn maths with the answer sheet in front of you.
I am not saying that parents don't have a responsibility to model appropriate behavior, help the children learn how to solve problems, or (most importantly) keep the child safe from too great physical danger. What I am trying to point out is that there is a need, place, and time for a different kind of attention: the quick look around the corner to make sure the toddler is alright as they stack bricks into towers and knock them down, looking out the window now and then as the kids and their friends learn how to play a new game together, allowing them spaces where parents do not intrude or interrupt except in cases of emergency. One good unsupervised act is worth twenty supervised ones, and the magic of unstructured play needs to be undisturbed from the too focused presence of parents. It's similar to "pulling up a flower to see how the roots are doing. Put another way, too many anxious openings of the oven door, and the cake falls instead of rising. Moreover, enforced change usually does not last, while productive enduring can ingrain permanent change" (Neal A. Maxwell, "Endure It Well").
2. Management and Micro-managing
When people without experience in leadership get promoted to leadership they are in danger of becoming micro-managers. They want to put in a lot of effort, and very often they think that effort has to come in the form of focused attention to each of the people they are supposed to be leading. While this can do some good in certain instances, very often these leaders tend to wear out themselves and the people they are supposed to lead by their excessive focus. Moreover, any gains in productivity are likely to disappear again as soon as the effort is reduced or another manager is brought in.
The more sustainable model is one who leads with indirect vision, recognizing patterns and keeping an eye on the processes going on, but also knows to step back and let a natural good dynamic develop, adding some encouragement here and some help there. This model is more like the farmer or gardner who keeps an overview of the processes going on but knows not to interfere too much in them.
3. General vs. Specific Knowledge
In academia, and the sciences in particular, specialization or hyperfocusing is the name of the game. It has come to the point where even different branches of physics or chemistry may have little understanding of the work that is going on in the other branches. Generalists are inherently suspicious, crossing from one discipline to another is seen as indicative of lack of depth or discipline, and a wide spread of publications is often punished in tenure or promotion reviews. Yet some very innovative insights have come from people who were able to cross the disciplinary boundaries, and this has often been the birthplace of new disciplines. John von Neumann started in mathematics but also became a foundational figure in game theory, nuclear physics, computer science, and international relations. Kenneth Burke felt uncomfortable with the rigidness of academic disciplines and therefore never completed a degree or stayed teaching at any academic institution for too long, and he has become an authority in communication, rhetoric and composition, literature, and many of the social sciences, influencing figures such as Goffmann, Francis Ferguson, Renè Girard, and many others.
I am usually skeptical of conferences with too broad topics, since these can often be predatory, but in the midst of this hyperspecialization there is an important place for conferences such as TED. Here, people from many walks of life meet together and listen short presentations of inspiring and interesting stories and projects prepared for a general audience. Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, describes how he at the first day of his first conference started out amused, then confused as there seemed to be no common thread to what they all were saying, and then his mind started to cross-polinate ideas from all these different areas into new and remarkable insights. He could only get to this point by taking in a "wide vision" of impressions and ideas without focusing too much on each individual one, and that brought him much more than any conference he had ever been to before. He became aware of "the interconnectedness of knowledge," even in an age of specialization.
Like my son, we often encounter situations where a lot of balls are coming towards us at the same time, and the best way to respond to these challenges long-term may be learning not to focus on each one of them too much, but keep our eyes on the bigger picture.