# Sensing and Intuition as Preferences Explained



## RunForCover07 (Apr 9, 2013)

I found this great video that not only talks about sensing vs intuition, but it has an awesome exercise with people that really shows how these types view and process the world differently.

If you have a good idea already of how the two functions work, skip to 4:09 to see the exercise.

What are your thoughts on this?


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## Mammon (Jul 12, 2012)

-White cup probably ridged sides for grip stuff thicker upper edge, eh k.

-Plastic cups at work which I always drink warm coco from. Though it looks thicker so it would probably not hurt my hands as I hold it and drink from it. Instead of putting two in one as it is now I'd probably only need just one for these.

My second point was irrelevant to the question so if one were to ask me what do you see: A white cup. Plain and straight.


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## Mr inappropriate (Dec 17, 2013)

great example really, I'm sure it helps more than pages of descriptions of S vs N(for me anyways).

however, I felt like N types are trolling for a while, I never thought someone can see things like that, maybe apart from noticing non-recyclable material. other than that, its just a cup used for drinking beverages !


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## RunForCover07 (Apr 9, 2013)

crashbandicoot said:


> great example really, I'm sure it helps more than pages of descriptions of S vs N(for me anyways).
> 
> however, I felt like N types are trolling for a while, I never thought someone can see things like that, maybe apart from noticing non-recyclable material. other than that, its just a cup used for drinking beverages !


I think that's great. Yeah, I get told I over think things all of the time. I thought this video might be helpful for those who are more visual and hands on learners.


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## spiderfrommars (Feb 22, 2012)

I made @randomshoes do the exercise with me, and wrote down our responses.

me: Okay, describe the cup.randomshoes: It...looks like a styrofoam cup, but I don't have my glasses on, is it a styrofoam cup?
me: Yes, it is, it's a styrofoam cup. It's a drinking cup. You could put a drink in it.
randomshoes: You could. This is like one of those high school...
me: Or you could put it on your head, and make a tiny hat.
randomshoes: Yes, that too. It looks like one of those high school presentations and why did the presenters switch and he's wearing a nice blue shirt and we were supposed to be talking about the cup, right?
me: Right.
randomshoes: Is it a styrofoam cup? I really need to know now. Can we check if it's a styrofoam cup?
(we checked)
randomshoes: A styrofoam cup. I see a fucking styrofoam cup! And when I look at you, I see a person who needs to stop asking that stupid question!
(after a bit)
randomshoes: And it's not even fun. Like, paper you can bend and stuff. Styrofoam isn't really a fun material. It doesn't really need to exist.
(listening to the responses)
me: Or...you could put a drink in it.
randomshoes: What I would want to do is tell a story. Like, I put water in the cup and I had a drink, and then I went to talk to my friends...
me: Like, you actually did that? Or just in your mental wanderings during the three minutes while describing the cup?
randomshoes: Probably only in my mental wanderings. Although, if I was going to do mental wanderings, what I would do is fill the cup up with salt water, and put a little squid in it, and I would shrink down like Alice in Wonderland and jump in with the squid and swim around. And then they would have more to describe than the fucking dimensions of the fucking styrofoam cup.

I "got" the responses of the Ns more than the Ss (milimeters? wha?), but in the final interview, I identified very much with the S guy: it's a cup. It's just a cup. That's all. However, I noticed that Ns talked about what you could do with the cup, while Ss described the cup's physical properties. That was also my response, albeit briefly--I couldn't think of anything to say but to list possible uses.

What's weird is in their actual descriptions, I felt the Ss were the ones overthinking things. (Describing precise dimensions when these aren't details necessary to people, at least not me.) But in the final interview, the man said Ns overthink things, while really some were underthinking the cup and switching mental tracks. All of them, in different ways, changed the subject. 

Based on my responses, I'm honestly not sure where I fall. I didn't see any "meaning" in the cup, nor did I attempt to describe it with any specificity. So I didn't really do the N thing or the S thing, as this video sees it. I agree with @Merihim: a white cup.


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## Vox (Mar 16, 2012)

...I honestly got more confused with every Intuitive that shared their notes. The question is clearly "what do you see?" not "what do you think about when you look at this cup?" (In which case the N answers would make more sense.) I guess you could interpret "see" to mean whatever you might visualize in your mind's eye as well, but I feel like the more likely interpretation is the one rooted in physical reality.

See, if I had done that exercise, my answers would be very similar to the Sensors', despite being an Intuitive (though there would have been a few tangents, and I did initially start thinking of possibilities like the Intuitive said - "it's a lot of things, it's a container, it's the material it's made from," etc.). I think that the second round of questions that involved one S and one N representative is more helpful, and their responses actually answer the questions posed.

Eh, maybe my response has more to do with my environmental influences. "What do you see?" sounds like a request for (scientific) observations, and observations are purely grounded in the concrete. If I tried injecting anything the Intuitives said in lab reports, I'd instantly get marked down. There's just no place for that. Which, I think, can be misleading for anyone who's unsure of their Perceiving preference - if I had seen this video back when I was first investigating MBTI, I would definitely have considered that I'm a Sensor. (Would've eventually gotten it right, as I do know I consciously filter what Ne generates when I make scientific observations. It's not my primary operation, just one that science education has sculpted.)


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## 0+n*1 (Sep 20, 2013)

Too much fluff in both sides, I think. I only see a white cup that's probably empty.
What I'm seeing is a lot of pretentious people.

Post-note: But I don't fall in the N spectrum all the way. I'm more in the middle.


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

spiderfrommars said:


> I "got" the responses of the Ns more than the Ss (milimeters? wha?), but in the final interview, I identified very much with the S guy: it's a cup. It's just a cup. That's all. However, *I noticed that Ns talked about what you could do with the cup, while Ss described the cup's physical properties*. That was also my response, albeit briefly--I couldn't think of anything to say but to list possible uses.
> 
> What's weird is in their actual descriptions, I felt the Ss were the ones overthinking things. (Describing precise dimensions when these aren't details necessary to people, at least not me.) But in the final interview, the man said Ns overthink things, while really some were underthinking the cup and switching mental tracks. All of them, in different ways, changed the subject.
> 
> Based on my responses, I'm honestly not sure where I fall. I didn't see any "meaning" in the cup, nor did I attempt to describe it with any specificity. So I didn't really do the N thing or the S thing, as this video sees it. I agree with @_Merihim_: a white cup.


I think the bolded line is the key difference in S vs N.


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## teddy564339 (Jun 23, 2010)

Yeah, it seems like a lot of the Ns responding here are right.


I showed this video to my INFP friend, thinking that he would relate to the N responses. But he said he didn't at all. He said he would have thought the activity was stupid and he would have just said "It's a cup" to be done with it, and also to kind of be difficult to the people running it.

Kind of like some people mentioned, he said that his N preferences were more likely to be geared towards things that he thought mattered. 

He said he liked the N responses, but that he would have never gone there because he didn't think it was worth it.



I thought maybe this was because being an NF, he would only feel like using his N abilities to more human-like subjects. This would especially be true because he has Fi as a dominant function and his Ne is just there to support it. Also, I've noticed that his Fi really makes him against conformity, so he may have felt like he wouldn't want to cooperate with the activity because of that.

I couldn't help but wonder if NTs were more likely to look at things that were mentioned by the Ns.


But the other thing is that it's kind of hard to tell how this activity was done. I think if a group of people first identified themselves as Ns or Ss and then got together, they would kind of start bouncing ideas off of each other and start building on it. It's a little different when you do that compared to just watching the video yourself and saying what comes to mind as an individual.


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## RunForCover07 (Apr 9, 2013)

Vox said:


> ...I honestly got more confused with every Intuitive that shared their notes. The question is clearly "what do you see?" not "what do you think about when you look at this cup?" (In which case the N answers would make more sense.) I guess you could interpret "see" to mean whatever you might visualize in your mind's eye as well, but I feel like the more likely interpretation is the one rooted in physical reality.
> 
> See, if I had done that exercise, my answers would be very similar to the Sensors', despite being an Intuitive (though there would have been a few tangents, and I did initially start thinking of possibilities like the Intuitive said - "it's a lot of things, it's a container, it's the material it's made from," etc.). I think that the second round of questions that involved one S and one N representative is more helpful, and their responses actually answer the questions posed.
> 
> Eh, maybe my response has more to do with my environmental influences. "What do you see?" sounds like a request for (scientific) observations, and observations are purely grounded in the concrete. If I tried injecting anything the Intuitives said in lab reports, I'd instantly get marked down. There's just no place for that. Which, I think, can be misleading for anyone who's unsure of their Perceiving preference - if I had seen this video back when I was first investigating MBTI, I would definitely have considered that I'm a Sensor. (Would've eventually gotten it right, as I do know I consciously filter what Ne generates when I make scientific observations. It's not my primary operation, just one that science education has sculpted.)


I think this goes to show you how each functions see things differently when asked, “What do you see?” There really was no correct answer or right way to see the cup. The lead sensors saw what it is through their 5 senses (they’re sensors, of course), and the intuitors saw what it is through their intuition, what it could be in the present or in the future. Of course those people have different auxiliary functions, so they're going to get different answers, as well as you.

But I think if you imagine the cup how you see everyday life, are you more drawn to sensor or intuitive ideas of thinking?


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

teddy564339 said:


> But the other thing is that it's kind of hard to tell how this activity was done. I think if a group of people first identified themselves as Ns or Ss and then got together, they would kind of start bouncing ideas off of each other and start building on it. It's a little different when you do that compared to just watching the video yourself and saying what comes to mind as an individual.


Having attended a similar seminar, usually the people are given a minute or two to write down their descriptions. It is individual work.


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## Afruabarkio (May 29, 2011)

Great exposition. First time in my life I get focus on a cup.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Oval circular object white in color. Yeah, good job of me, I described it based on Te. Does that now make me a Te dom? Anyway, so let's analyze what they call "sensor": 

Neil: Te dom. He's describing Te stuff, not sensation. Factual qualities. 

Second guy: More Te.

Third guy: Now, this guy is an actual perceiver though I am uncertain if I actually think he's an Se type. He could actually well be Ne since he's describing his impressions surrounding the cup rather than the cup itself. xNTP maybe?

Omar or something: Ti. He also threw in some intuitive stuff in there at the end (it's insulated so it keeps coffee hot).

Not surprised. The MBTI _often_ if not always confuses Thinking and especially Te with sensation. That's why stuff like this doesn't work.


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## Vox (Mar 16, 2012)

RunForCover07 said:


> I think this goes to show you how each functions see things differently when asked, “What do you see?” There really was no correct answer or right way to see the cup. The lead sensors saw what it is through their 5 senses (they’re sensors, of course), and the intuitors saw what it is through their intuition, what it could be in the present or in the future. Of course those people have different auxiliary functions, so they're going to get different answers, as well as you.
> 
> But I think if you imagine the cup how you see everyday life, are you more drawn to sensor or intuitive ideas of thinking?


I suppose. I need to have things clearly defined, so if I'm not given a clear definition, I draw from what I know to pick the most likely interpretation. In this case, it was the word "see," for which I picked the physical definition, which catalyzed my process of making physically observable conclusions.

I am more attracted to intuitive ideas, assuming I'm interpreting your question correctly. I certainly did feel a sort of internal energy building while I was listening to the Intuitives (that wasn't derived from my confusion), and I could feel myself itching to explore that kind of thought. If the question had been framed differently, I definitely could have launched into the same thought process that the Intuitives displayed.



teddy564339 said:


> Yeah, it seems like a lot of the Ns responding here are right.
> 
> I showed this video to my INFP friend, thinking that he would relate to the N responses. But he said he didn't at all. He said he would have thought the activity was stupid and he would have just said "It's a cup" to be done with it, and also to kind of be difficult to the people running it.
> 
> ...


It might be a matter more so of being J-dom? I feel like INTPs might have a response similar to your friend's. I'm almost always a little skeptical of anything like this, but it's more of a hammered-in skepticism. I personally like any kind of mental exercise and will go ahead with them despite whatever skepticism I might have.


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## Vox (Mar 16, 2012)

ephemereality said:


> Oval circular object white in color. Yeah, good job of me, I described it based on Te. Does that now make me a Te dom? Anyway, so let's analyze what they call "sensor":
> 
> Neil: Te dom. He's describing Te stuff, not sensation. Factual qualities.
> 
> ...


I _thought_ I detected some inferences toward the end...

I'm curious - what do you say of the Ns' responses?


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## Word Dispenser (May 18, 2012)

RunForCover07 said:


> I found this great video that not only talks about sensing vs intuition, but it has an awesome exercise with people that really shows how these types view and process the world differently.
> 
> If you have a good idea already of how the two functions work, skip to 4:09 to see the exercise.
> 
> What are your thoughts on this?


Lol, holy shit.

I did this before I heard the answers, and I was all, 'wasteful, non-recyclable, flimsy, can draw a circle using the top or bottom as an outline, is it molded from a cast?, reminds me of the material they use to insulate boxes, white rectangular blob of 3-dimensionalness.'

I.. Love how specific the sensors are. Every single one of them thought of the measurement first. o_o... GENIUSES. How.. _How _can you just see an approximate measurement like that?

And then the intuitors, first thing _they _see, 'ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES HERE, PEOPLE.' 

And the sensors are like, 'It's recyclable!' 

Aah.

But, these people are self-typed though, and most of their answers are similar anyway, probably coloured by self-perception.


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## braided pain (Jul 6, 2012)

The sensors has me laughing and WTF with the measurements and pointing out the lip of the cup.

Then most of the intuitives had me laughing and WTF with the off- the wall uses.

My own response was pretty much in line with the girl called back up at the end for the Ns. It's a white Styrofoam coffee cup. It's a vessel for holding liquids, especially hot liquids.

Although if I'd had to stare at a frickin' coffee cup for three more minutes, I might have gotten bored enough to write a story about Bill's hangover, too.:kitteh:


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## PaladinX (Feb 20, 2013)

ephemereality said:


> Oval circular object white in color. Yeah, good job of me, I described it based on Te. Does that now make me a Te dom? Anyway, so let's analyze what they call "sensor":
> 
> Neil: Te dom. He's describing Te stuff, not sensation. Factual qualities.
> 
> ...


I agree that the judging functions are also evident in this exercise. I remember pointing out to myself which are clear feelers and thinkers. However, the Thinking is still focused on physical sensate properties rather than abstract/intuitive possibilities. As for the comment about Omar, that's not surprising. Why would he necessarily only list sensate properties?


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

PaladinX said:


> I agree that the judging functions are also evident in this exercise. I remember pointing out to myself which are clear feelers and thinkers. However, the Thinking is still focused on physical sensate properties rather than abstract/intuitive possibilities. As for the comment about Omar, that's not surprising. Why would he necessarily only list sensate properties?


Yes, though one can argue if that's not inherently biased in the question? If they had asked, "what does the object mean/represent/how does one use this object?" I think the answers may have been different. Similarly, one could also discern a difference here in that the question "what do you experience when you see this object?" would be more in line with perception too. It's a bit in line with confirmation bias and the saying that there are no dumb answers, only dumb questions. 

Like Jung wrote, everyone uses all the functions, we wouldn't function otherwise. I think what's more telling is how people orient themselves on average or in general when there is no need for them to express something specifically asked for. 

And regarding Omar, the reason why I bring him up is that he was enlisted as a sensor (all of the people I commented on here were supposed sensors). The point I'm raising is that I don't think he's a sensor if he, out of all other people (exception being third guy who also seemed to describe things a bit more "abstractly" like how the shadow fell) focused on T qualities, actually mentioned something intuitive. 

What it does to me is that it a) shows the flawed nature of the MBTI and b) shows the flawed nature of most practitioners and typers who actually can't discern between actual Jungian cognition and MBTI stereotype traits associated with cognition. Omar struck me as a very clear mistype. First guy I could perhaps peg as an ESTJ for example, so he still fit the camp.

Similarly, I haven't confirmed as I didn't bother to watch the entire video, only this bit, that they likely confuse intuition with feeling (I derive this from the fact that you point out that you were sitting there and discerning between thinking/feeling the most). Sure, feeling is "abstract" in the sense that it focuses on ethics and values (I like this object, the color is very nice, it makes me think of how much people waste things in society) but that's my problem I guess. Because they aren't necessarily speaking of the object's precise properties or nature trying to define it impersonally, it's seen as intuition because it's "fluffy" or how to put it.

Indeed, a lot of F doms do mistype as intuitive doms, especially on the Fe side, since there is an aspect of Feeling that overlaps with the commonly understood definition of intuition.


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## orni (Sep 19, 2012)

Afruabarkio said:


> Great exposition. First time in my life I get focus on a cup.


first you must understand the cup. only then can you understand that there is no cup


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