Gladwell's Blink

I enjoyed listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s excerpt from his book, Blink.  The excerpt covered the adaptive unconscious in our brains, priming, different experiments and finally the IAT.  The descriptions of priming and the experiments which demonstrated it were very interesting.  I do not know if I would have picked up on the fact I was walking more slowly out of an office if I was not aware that I had just been “primed.”  In addition, hearing about the card experiments where participants’ hands began sweating before they could verbally tell a difference in the deck of cards was very fascinating.  For me, I made a connection to William James’ and his assertion that physical changes in the brain occur with learning.  The card experiment seemed to demonstrate this as physical cues were noticeable before the participants could explain what was happening with the different card decks.  However I think the most interesting part of the excerpt for me was the in-depth examination and explanation of the IAT.  This explanation helped me to understand the IAT much better than I did simply by reading the information on the Harvard website.  Gladwell’s explanation helped me to understand the aims of the IAT and how the differences are measured.  The end of the excerpt was a call for us to understand that our first impressions are “generated by our experiences and environment.”  And that we have the power to “alter the way we ‘thin slice’ by changing the experiences that comprises those impressions.”