I used to think I lacked situational awareness. A search for cures returned no direct method to improve it. This is because we can perceive the same situation, but differently. When we’re interested in something (like the model of a friend’s new car), we find it more often. It’s pulled out of our visual input instead of dying off during denoising – like in frequency illusions.
To a large extent, attuning ourselves to more important things is “situational awareness”. There may be other factors, like our basal arousal or how drunk we are, but variation in those seems to zero out in comparative daily importance.
Since it’s about attention, we can orient our own eyes to see things differently – creating selective frequency illusions. Learning a new word can make it appear more often in media, since the sound has sudden meaning, but the effect can also be used as a form of proactive prevention. The more complex your environment, the more likely you don’t notice a sign before too late.
What signs have you learned to look for?
To offer some slight reframings to the original question and more specific categories:
What are the most useful general orientations for broader situational awareness?
What do you want every child to know?
If it meant you would otherwise forget, what words would you pin to your bathroom mirror?
What subtle patterns in other people spell nothing good?
What hints of recklessness, Machiavellianism, predatory tendencies, or destructive instability are subdued by politeness?
Some traits of this variety are heavily offset by charm or charisma. How do you tell the difference?
What have you noticed before someone got hurt?
If it was a medical emergency:
Vocal cues?
Behavioral tics?
An environmental cue they didn’t notice, perhaps repeatedly?
Are there very early warning signs of some conditions?
If it was due to someone else, how would you warn them without making them more reticent?
On the road, what do you see that others miss?
Aside from the danger of other drivers, what vitally important environmental cues are specific to driving?
What do you consider basic common sense to not ignore?
[Question] What environmental cues had you not seen them would have ended in disaster?
I used to think I lacked situational awareness. A search for cures returned no direct method to improve it. This is because we can perceive the same situation, but differently. When we’re interested in something (like the model of a friend’s new car), we find it more often. It’s pulled out of our visual input instead of dying off during denoising – like in frequency illusions.
To a large extent, attuning ourselves to more important things is “situational awareness”. There may be other factors, like our basal arousal or how drunk we are, but variation in those seems to zero out in comparative daily importance.
Since it’s about attention, we can orient our own eyes to see things differently – creating selective frequency illusions. Learning a new word can make it appear more often in media, since the sound has sudden meaning, but the effect can also be used as a form of proactive prevention. The more complex your environment, the more likely you don’t notice a sign before too late.
What signs have you learned to look for?
To offer some slight reframings to the original question and more specific categories:
What are the most useful general orientations for broader situational awareness?
What do you want every child to know?
If it meant you would otherwise forget, what words would you pin to your bathroom mirror?
What subtle patterns in other people spell nothing good?
What hints of recklessness, Machiavellianism, predatory tendencies, or destructive instability are subdued by politeness?
Some traits of this variety are heavily offset by charm or charisma. How do you tell the difference?
What have you noticed before someone got hurt?
If it was a medical emergency:
Vocal cues?
Behavioral tics?
An environmental cue they didn’t notice, perhaps repeatedly?
Are there very early warning signs of some conditions?
If it was due to someone else, how would you warn them without making them more reticent?
On the road, what do you see that others miss?
Aside from the danger of other drivers, what vitally important environmental cues are specific to driving?
What do you consider basic common sense to not ignore?