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McLuhan on Blink Testing

At about the 10-minute mark in this video (from 1968) Marshall McLuhan refers to an expression that he claimed was then in use at IBM: “Information overload leads to pattern recognition.” This is central to the idea of what blink testing is all about. He also describes characteristics of the scientist’s mindset vs. the artist’s mindset, which reminded me of similar patterns that we might see in programmers and testers.

Thanks to Adam Goucher for pointing me to the video.

1 reply to “McLuhan on Blink Testing”

  1. I once heard about a CIA dude in the 70s who used spy satellite photos of russian troop movements. Each day as a satellite passed over some spot in Russia it took a photo. Then a CIA analyst had to compare the photo to previous days photos. Apparently the guy recorded all the photos as a film and then played the film at fast speed so he could see the 'movement'. I thought that was a brilliant use of 'blink testing'

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