Perceiver Strategy 65inches in a foot. A foot is a ruler. Queen Elizabeth is a Ruler. Queen
Elizabeth is also a ship. A ship sails on the ocean. Oceans have fish. Fish
have fins. The Finns fought the Russians. Fire trucks are always rushin‟.
Russians are red. Therefore fire trucks are red!” Of course, as the Perceiver
person becomes more
educated, his mental
connections tend to
make a little more
sense, but I suggest that
his mind may still go from „a‟ to „b‟ by stumbling through half of the
alphabet.
This associativity generally shows up in the speech of the Perceiver
person. He bounces from one topic to another. He is often saying: “Oh, that
reminds me...” as he begins another chain of associations. It also affects
the listening of the Perceiver person. He is tempted to interrupt others
before they finish speaking. Why? First, his mind has already jumped
ahead of the speaker and completed the sentence. While the talker is
wending his way from „d‟ to „e,‟ the Perceiver person has arrived at the
destination of „j.‟ Why should he listen further? The Perceiver person also
tends to approach reading in the same way. He often skims through a book
or article and picks out the essential points. Usually, he arrives at the
correct mental destination. But, not always.
Second, the words of the other person probably reminded the Perceiver
person of some related idea, and he knows that if he does not say it right
now, it will be gone, and he will not know how to bring it back. Besides,
since the thinking of the Perceiver person is constantly being dragged from
one concept to another, what is the harm of one more interruption?
What the Perceiver person does not realize is that there are people out
there who really do think linearly, who actually read books from start to
finish and who hate to be interrupted in the middle of a sentence. I learned
this principle while working with my analytical brother. I did not barge in
when he was talking, and heaven help me if I dared to interrupt his speech
with a pun or some other offbeat remark. Oh, the agony that I suffered
constantly biting my tongue, keeping my mouth shut, and swallowing
scores of brilliant comments, which then died stillborn. I received a plaque
once from a group of friends as a moving-away gift. On it was inscribed,
“We will miss you, but not the puns.”
A map provides a perfect illustration of Perceiver processing: First, as I
suggested earlier in the book, a map is associative. Symbols indicating
names, cities, roads, rivers, and mountains all lie scattered about on a
single sheet of paper. This is a good picture of Perceiver memory. His
mental room is full of facts strewn here and there with no regard for
context—information about mountains lies next to facts about the
„information highway‟ which connect to knowledge about the price of tea
in China. If at times the Perceiver person appears to be somewhat