After changing my direction since experiment 1, Task 2 and 3 aim to further investigate the next prompt:
How do individuals notice the same thing differently?
For this experiment I was joined by my younger sisters again, as I wanted to get a contrasting perspective on a new place to thus investigate multiple perspectives of noticing.
My first experiment was for me to record what the younger girls noticed when we simply visited a new cafe. I used the notes app on my phone to record the things they noticed, but I decided that in this experiment I would not prompt them to tell me but instead wait for it to happen. The results were as follows:
Charlotte (5 years old)
– Points out the painting of the bird on the wall, and tells me about the finger painting she made at creche.
– Comments on the lilac colour of her milkshake
– Notices that two of her chips are almost exactly the same size
Emily (8 years old)
– Also comments on the painting of the bird on the wall
– Notices that we both have our hair in a ponytail
– Says that the cafe is quieter than the last time we went out for lunch
– Comments on me writing notes on my phone
– Notices her milkshake is filled higher than Charlottes
– The lights are like the lights she has in her room
In comparing this experiment with the second, I found there to be a significant distance. Instead of keeping note of little things they noticed in a new environment, I instead asked them afterwards if they noticed anything about the said place (which happened to be a friends place.) When prompted about what they noticed, the answers were a lot more artificial and I felt as though when they were put on the spot, they made an effort to come up with answers that sometimes didn’t even correlate with the place, fabricating things to meet my criteria. I think it’s a difficult task to record what others notice without it becoming artificial, however with younger children it seems to be somewhat easier as they ten to vocalise the things they notice. I think moving onto task four I would like to take the more natural approach in recording what exactly others notice rather than force them to think of something after they’ve already gone through the experience. Recording them in an environment via video may be the best way to collect such perspectives.