Pattern recognition. Some people have and some don't. It's also situational for some people.

I had a friend who could immediately see patterns in fighting games, after a few plays they'd immediately know how the CPU would react in certain situations. I could never.

I can see patterns in code, how it relates to other code and in the processes surrounding it, especially when I'm not taking my ADD meds. It's a superpower when shit's on fire and needs to be handled fast.

Similarly some people form this "sixth sense" situational awareness for physical tools and safety. They'll just look at a worksite and "feel" something is off. Or they pick up a tool and immediately know something is off - something in the balance or how it feels in the hand, or maybe it made a noise it's not supposed to.

I ran a small light plastic assembly factory years ago and within 20 minutes of a new person starting I could tell if they could, what I call, “think in 3D” if they couldn’t they would never meet the standard we needed and I’d sadly have to fail their trial at the end of the first day - about 30% of people fell in to this category.

Can you go into detail on this with an example or two? It sounds interesting.

A little bit of a ramble here:

Different mental models is kind of a fascinating thing for me. I don't always pick up on something as quickly as my peers when it comes to things like math and pattern recognition, but I've tended to make up for that with a hard work ethic and what I think of as rabid curiosity and a strong desire to constantly grow my work skill set and knowledge. I've grown a lot during my career as a result when colleagues who had much higher GPAs stagnated. It's interesting how wide and varied our brains are. Again, when doing any pattern recognition games (e.g. speed, set...etc) with my wife...I don't think I'm bad, but she is grasping things at a rate of 3-6x what I can and it was the same in any hard STEM classes that we took together. It's the opposite for things like history where she can't pick up as much of what is going on in a lecture or documentary or whatever. Physically speaking I'm not sure how the brain works differently between us, but I'm guessing the weights are just different if it's anything like the NN in computer science. We were playing dominoes the other day and I had to pause to check which had already been played and she got a little frustrated that I was taking too much time - like what do you mean you don't already know which ones have been played? So I guess it's a greater ability to recognize and retain patterns quickly.

In your case of the worker, I wonder if they were just dangerously clueless or just needed a little more time to build that mental model to grasp how the pieces all fit together. I also wonder how I would have faired.

Sure, difficult to really explain it as I don't think I have the correct physiological knowledge/vocabulary but I can try to paint a picture.

We assembled a plastic product with about 20 components of different shapes and sizes. There were slots to align and friction fit, there were things to click, wires to route, glue to dab etc.

The far extreme of "can think in 3D" were the people who could be shown the finished item, the kit of parts and pretty much just assemble it. They would miss some "trick" or "knack" we had developed and they might not quite get the alignment or placement of a part perfectly but the product would work.

The opposite end were the people who unless I was stood with them and helping to move the components in to alignment just simply couldn't "get" it. It was as if they didn't have a the ability to retain the finished view and movement through 3D space required to complete the movement. Could also have been a coordination, dexterity or proprioception issue.

Of course this was a spectrum and we had to make a judgement call (often in discussion with them) about how they would improve/get up to speed or if it was a lost cause. We built jigs and tools to help remove the finesse required in the assembly which helped a lot BUT, when you got someone who could just see it no amount of training or jigs could get everyone to that speed.

On quiet days we would have little competitions on certain stations to see if people could get a new record and it was those days when you could really see the people who just got it. The best example I can give was making the final cardboard packing boxes, this was an 8 movement process from flat box to assembled with lid open, the record was 2.7 sections, a sustainable pace (so the time that actually mattered) was around 7 seconds, people who just couldn't get it were over 30 seconds and usually with many quality issues as at those people were often fighting the box and material.

Thank you. That's helpful! I find this interesting as well. Some folks like to build with detailed instructions and others prefer to just get the gist and figure it out for themselves. :)

The best math professor I ever had was a fantastic instructor because he had in head a catalog of wrong mental models and could nearly immediately grasp where a student might have taken a wrong turn and try to get them on the right path.

(It was a graduate level real analysis course, and people who had been calculus whizzes were struggling with point set topology proofs.)

Wow that sounds like a real superpower in that setting. I have met many that have very strong visualization/conceptualization skills in things like 3d, mechanical, color/looks, code and electronics - but for other peoples mental models that one was new to me. The closest I can remember would be some sales people I met who are also chess players, they could "play" in their heads a range of different scenarios of interactions in a sales conversation - many levels deep. And would do it, especially if/when stakes where high. In the blink of a second. It would take them muuuch longer to just answer me a few questions on why they thought "C" was the best way to open, and then make sure to get in point "E" (or "G") before proposing "K".

The last one you mention is something I think I have but haven’t thought of it like that.

As in, I’ve many times stopped a friend who’s using a tool because I can tell the sound is off - almost always finding something amiss.

Or picked up a tool and felt that something was wrong.

Same with small engines, the sound and vibrations I’ve always found easy to tell if something is off.

On some level, I thought everyone had this if they spent a few moments around these items.

I realize that is such an ignorant take on my part!!

Conversely, I have almost zero talent for easily telling if code is off, or for fighting games, or numeric patterns beyond basic examples.

I’ll notice things that might be off on my car, but I am far from a mechanic.

When then there is indeed something wrong, I have a hard time convincing mechanics and techs that there is an actual issue.

It’s a heck of a lot easier when it’s your professional ___domain, and you carry the acumen to back up your findings.

The same applies to firing ranges, scuba diving, etc. too. I'm not from the US but have some firearms experience before moving here. When I was learning shop from my father, or how to handle firearms the core messaging was very similar. Everything you said about the situational awareness and intuition aligns with my experience.

There are many people who can do the main activity (shoot down a range that is clear), but can't setup safely, or muzzle sweep folks when they're asked to step away. These are the really critical situations where you need to be ready to safely do the activity or safely transition to the next thing (which might have its own unique dangers.)

>There's a certain situational awareness that you have to develop

The term you're looking for is executive function and in a nutshell it's the brain watching and controlling the brain. There are deliberate, methodical tasks in which executive function is a great predictor of safety and success. Wood shop is one of them. There are also flowy, improvisational tasks where a lack of executive function allows one to be in the moment and respond quickly to changing conditions. Off the top of my head I'm thinking of a jazz drummer or an freestyle rapper, someone who has to move quickly and guess a lot without much assurance of the results of their actions.

I also wanna throw some support behind the idea of "thinking like the machine". Us coders have a lot of weird little quirks but one that's stuck out for me ever since I read it in the jargon file back in the 90s was the tendency of people who are good with computers to also anthropomorphize them. Most people speak in terms of what computers are programmed to do and what they require, but all the best coders I know speak in terms of what the machine is trying to do and what it needs. The anthropomorphization seems to engage empathy, and that empathy leads to a deeper understanding.