How Your Perception May Be Wrong When Communicating

This illustration is known as Titchener Circles or Ebbinghaus Illusion.

Believe it or not, the yellow circles in the image are the same size. It’s the surrounding dots — and their spacing — that throw off our perception.

As evidenced by this illusion, our perception is not always accurate.

Many of us perceive that we are good communicators and effective at sharing information.

But, maybe our perception is wrong?

Sometimes the best thing we can do when communicating is to challenge our perceptions.

✅Check in with a colleague to see if they need anything – even if they appear to have it all together.

✅Make sure you “painted done” for team members on assignments, regardless of the head nods you see after assigning the project.

✅Touch base with colleagues and team members about information shared via email. Just because it was emailed doesn’t mean it was communicated!

As George Bernard Shaw said, “𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲.”

Did you think the circles were the same size? I thought the one on the right was bigger!

#communication #communicationtips #writing

(This illustration is known as Titchener Circles or Ebbinghaus Illusion.)