Overview

Without looking, describe what is on the back of a 10 note. Logical thinkers will start with the number 10; the watermark; the signature of the head cashier but is that on the back or front? The visual thinkers will see a head of a famous man but is it Shakespeare, Darwin or Robert Stephenson? You may remember a bird but which bird? You will remember the colour brown but what other colours are used? Find a 10 note and see just how much you have missed. There is a wealth of information conveyed on that piece of paper: the hummingbird sniffing at a flower; the magnifying glass showing up the stamens of flowers; a galleon sailing towards the viewer; a compass; the head of Charles Darwin and colours from across the spectrum. The reason it is unlikely you have recalled all this detail is that you don t need to. From the time you started to manage your own money, you learnt to scan notes for the minimum amount of information that you needed to ensure you handed over, and were handed back, the correct note.

The ability to scan is a useful one, it minimizes effort. In our daily lives, we scan to quickly read situations. We scan people in order to assess their age, approachability, socio-economic group, lifestyle and likeness to ourselves. Our accuracy rate will depend on our level of observational and...