Blog Post 2: More Explorationof Mental Filters and Their Infulences on Perception

Descriptions:	Interpretations:
About 30 people came and left	Most people seemed in a hurry
About 10 people were there for the duration we were	The guy sitting in his car looked impatient
Almost everyone checked their phone while there	A few ladies were dressed up for a formal meeting
One guy sat in his car outside for about 20 mins.
Mostly adults with a few teenagers
More men than women

Parking Lot:

• People were there to only get coffee – some ended up getting food or meeting up with friends
• Thought the guy in his car was waiting for a friend but then he just ended up leaving without ever going in
• A lady walked in with her baby she looked very cute and well behaved but, she ended up screaming the entire time the lady waited for her drink

Reflection:
For my observation I went with a friend, Grace, and sat at Starbucks for about 45 minutes and observed people as they came and went. Through this experience I learned that I usually notice more obvious things while observing a situation. I was able to recall faces of the people I saw where Grace could recall what they were wearing and the type of food and drinks they got. We observed one man who sat in his car for about 20 minutes. I thought that he may have been waiting for a friend but Grace felt he was trying to waste time before he had to be somewhere else or that he was stopped there to answer emails and text messages and make phone calls. I feel that her interpretation may have been more accurate because he eventually left without ever going inside. We also observed another lady who brought her baby into Starbucks. At first the baby was very smiley and cute and both Grace and I commented on how good she was being for being in such a loud and hectic environment. After a few minutes of the baby and mother waiting in line we saw that we were too quick to make an observation because the baby quickly became agitated and started to cry. I found that through the forty-five minutes we were there we found that many times we observed situations and made interpretations too quickly because after a short period the situation would continue to develop and many times it would turn out different than we expected. I find that in order to be more aware of what is actually going on around me I need to start paying attention to more of the smaller details in order to get the most learning out of the situation.