4qtr2006 - Feature Article: Beyond Illusions

I read an interesting article in the August/September 2006 issue of Scientific American Mind magazine called: "The Quirks of Constancy." It starts off with a big picture of the Ponzo Illusion. For those of you unfamiliar with the Ponzo Illusion, it was named after the Italian psychologist Mario Ponzo, who, in 1913, offered this drawing for consideration:

Now if you're like most, you probably see the top yellow line as clearly being longer than the bottom one. But, in truth, both yellow lines are identical in every way. So look at the illusion again. Isn't it fascinating that the top yellow line still looks longer than the bottom one even though you know that they're the exact same size? That, my friends, is why it's called an illusion!

And that's why the article's subtitle asks the following question: "Even when we consciously know two lines are the same length, why can't we help seeing them as different?"

So how does Ponzo continue do what he did? The answer has to do with something like this: The railroad tracks convince our brains that there's some depth to the picture and that the top yellow line is 'farther away' from us - and therefore should appear smaller - than the yellow line below it. But because it doesn't look smaller, our brains automatically conclude that it must be because the top line is actually the bigger of the two.

Except, of course, that it's not! They're both identical, as seen when the "railroad tracks" are replaced with straight lines. Voila! The illusion is gone:

But this isn't really an article about what a guy named Ponzo discovered some 90+ years ago, though. It's about our need to do a better job of recognizing - and giving ourselves credit for - the incremental improvements we achieve in our ongoing self-development work. You see, just as we continue to see Ponzo's yellow lines as different sizes even though we know they are not, we also all-too-often continue to label, or see, ourselves as not having changed - even though there's irrefutable evidence to the contrary. Witness:

• Quote-unquote "shy" people still tend to label themselves as shy even though they now sometimes talk with people standing on line with them at the grocery store, or get into conversation with fellow commuters on the train platform.
  
• Quote-unquote "unconfident" people still tend to label themselves as unconfident even though they have no problem asking co-workers or colleagues if they want to grab a cup of coffee or get a bite to eat.
  
• Quote-unquote "not-so-smart" people still tend to see label themselves as not-so-smart even though they are clearly subject matter experts (SME) on a wide variety of topics and people continually seek them out for their SME-ness.

In these cases, and others like them, there is specific, quantifiable, evidence that real and meaningful improvement has been made, that real and meaningful improvement is being made, and that real and meaningful improvement continues to be made. Yet the illusion of their self-limiting beliefs prevents them from recognizing their changes as such.

The message here is this: If you know you're honestly making an effort to improve yourself, it's more than likely that you have improved - more than you realize. Remember: Just because your short-comings sometimes still look bigger than your successes, it doesn't mean that they actually are. Any lack-of-progress you're feeling is probably just a variation of Ponzo's Illusion.