Recommended by  Judith Blanton

This is a book about seeing. The author, a cognitive scientist, shows us how much there is to see if we would really look.  It is a funny and readable book because she makes her points by taking us on 11 walks – mainly in her Manhattan neighborhood – with such companions as an urban sociologist, an artist, a geologist, a dog, a sound designer, a physician, and a 19-month-old child. What they see, how they see it, and why most of us do not see the same things reveal the startling power of human attention and the cognitive aspects of what it means to be an expert observer. Each companion’s selective enhancement or suppression of their perceptual field highlights parts of the world that they see but which we have either learned to ignore or do not even know we can see. The book has made me more aware of what I pay attention to (or ignore) and, I believe, has enriched my understanding of my clients and their worlds.