Group exercises

							Group exercise

   Fruit salad
                   Exercise #3 general
                       instructions
The “Fruit Salad” Exercise Purpose: To demonstrate how sending mixed messages can cause confusion.
     Time: 15 minutes Materials: 1 room, a large mixed bowl of FRESH fruit, napkins, plates and a
     number of blindfold. The participants are to divide groups = # of blindfolds. One member of each
     group should put on a blindfold. The blindfolded person will then be given a piece of fruit to eat
     and identify. While the person is eating the fruit, someone else in the group should place a second
     piece of fruit of similar texture under the under the nose of the blindfolded person. Through this
     exercise, participants will show that mixed messages lead to confusion. If for example the blindfolded
     person is eating an orange and a lemon is placed under his nose, most people will ‘taste’ lemons.
Bowl of FRESH fruit should contain slices of : Oranges/lemons/grapefruit/limes (citrus works best) or
     apples/pears/etc
     (The combinations should have similar textures. Pieces should be cut to similar sizes.)

You can expect the different members of the group to fail at different points in during the exercise.

After you have run through the fruit - and each person has failed - discuss why they failed and how
     they were tricked into failing
     Again each of these ‘mixed signals’ interfers with picking up the desired message.