Let’s build a richer and more perceptually diverse world
When I was little I developed a habit of counting the number of letters in words. I favoured the ones with even numbers and ignored the ones with odd ones. To this day I still catch myself doing that sometimes.
This quirk of mine was useless when it came to do maths. I have to admit that I have never lost my aversion to this science. However, the habit served me well when I began playing dominoes regularly during my uni days. I was able to read the game in front of me in ways that even my partner couldn’t.
I became a much-sought player and as a result I earned a good reputation. And it was all down to how different my brain behaved.
In the UK I worked in primary schools for more than eleven years. During this time I came across various terms to describe different abilities amongst pupils. From the confusing G&T (Gifted and Talented) to “children on the spectrum”, I’ve heard them all.
However, since becoming a cycling instructor and returning to educational establishments as an outsider, I’ve been aware of a particular word and its close cousin being bandied about: the former is neurodivergent. The latter is neurotypical.
What these two words attempt to explain and fail to is the diversity of thinking styles.
Our sensory information is not straightforward. Context informs a lot of what we perceive. Even though that most of the time we’re unaware of it, our conscious experiences are sifted through a contextual colander.
In a recent article professor Anil Seth called this phenomenon “controlled hallucination”. We remain tethered to reality, but only through prediction and correction. However, “controlled hallucination” is not identical to the reality we experience. This reality, no matter how objective it is, will trigger different perceptual experiences in us.
Many people, education specialists amongst them, tend to look at neurodiversity from an “efficient brain vs deficient one” perspective. Discussions on the topic are usually framed in condition-related terms such as autism or ADHD. Little or no thought is given to the learning opportunities these differences offer.
We’re so wired to believe our perception of the world is the real one that when presented with an alternative, we struggle to include the other person’s point of view. Have you ever come across the drawing of the two faces that also look like a cup? The picture has come up on my Facebook feed a few times. It always elicits the same responses. Some people see the two faces clearly. Others spot the cup first, perhaps because of its striking black colour. Both camps are right.
The best gift we can offer both to ourselves in the present and generations in the future is a richer inner diversity. There is no one way of perceiving the world. Professor Seth calls this “perceptual diversity”. It’s a way of not only enriching our understanding of the world around us, but also of understanding other people’s perception of the same world. Who knows? One of those people might be a dominoes wizard. “Wizard”. Six letters. I approve.
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