Blind with Eyes Wide Open

How an individual perceives change depends greatly on his interest and the significance of the part of the scene being changed for that person. Of course, if that person is interested in something, then his attention will probably will be focused on that same thing, and he becomes simply “blind” to the other irrelevant things surrounding him. It may seem like it, but we’re not talking about world peace or any related sort. This is about how much you actually see when you look.

How much attention is given to “attention” in this topic is not an overstatement. The article To See or Not to See: The Need for Attention to Perceive Changes in Scenes is about an experiment performed to prove just how important attention is to detect visual change.

We already mentioned that change perceived depends on the interest of an individual and the attention he gives to it. What happens to the other objects in the environment? Are they still in our memories? If we try to think really hard, will we remember them? Wasn’t the attention we gave enough? For example, you glance at a very messy room, and you notice that on the floor there is a mug, on the table there are books and a lamp, on the bed there is a guitar, and almost everywhere else are clothes. Let’s say that this gist of the scene is composed of the things you find most interesting. But then you did not notice that on the floor there is a shoe, on the table there are pens beside the books, and underneath the bed there is another shoe. What happens to the things we did not notice? The researchers proposed that objects we do not pay attention to are simply overwritten by what we see next. Suppose we take another look at the same messy room, and this time we see those things. Still, there are other things we’d fail to notice. This could very well be the same reason why sometimes we just can’t seem to find what we’re looking for, and yet when we take another look, they’re right there, as if somebody moved them. But what if somebody did move them? Because we were not able to process the information that the pens were beside the books, and they were moved to another place, we do not know that a change had occurred. Our attention was focused on other things that were more relevant to us, or if not, were simply under the spotlight. This could also explain how magicians do their tricks.

Because our brain can handle allocating attention to only a few items, we can only see a few changes at any time. However, this does not mean that we can only detect change in the things that interest us. Imagine yourself looking at a picture of a very crowded mall corridor. In the picture, of course, nobody’s moving. You notice a lot of things here and there. Then you noticed something suddenly disappeared, for no apparent reason, as if it suddenly became invisible or was removed in the picture. No matter how quickly that kind of change happened, if it, or he, was in your field of view, you most probably will notice it. The same thing goes for the pens mentioned earlier: if they moved while you were staring at the room, then you’d notice.

Even knowing that a change is about to happen doesn’t make much of a difference. Despite having scattered attention all over the place, there isn’t a guarantee that you’ll find what you’re looking for. Knowing beforehand could help you notice the presence of an object, but not necessarily the kind of change that occurred, as mentioned earlier with the case of the pens beside the books. If we did not pay attention to them, we wouldn’t know if they changed colors, or are smaller than the first time we saw them, or if their covers were removed.

And what if you were actually looking for something? Your attention would then be scattered all over the place. However, if you were given valid cues, you’d find it quicker. I remember I once gave instructions on how to go to a certain house. I gave each street, each corner to turn, how many turns to take, and everything else I remembered. As a result, they quickly got to the area. However, there was one thing I got wrong: the color of the gate. They ended up screaming “We’re here!” at the wrong house, which incidentally had the same color I gave and was very near the house they were looking for. They waited for quite some time outside that house. Had they not focused their attention on the color of the gate, and had I not given the color of the gate, they would have found the right house sooner. Similarly, researchers found that when given invalid cues, it takes a longer time for one to detect change.

Aside from having good vision and take care of your eyes, the attention you give to your surroundings heavily affect your view, both literally and figuratively, of the things around you. Just imagine how much you’re missing every time you blink, and every time someone gives you the wrong cue.

Reference:
Resink, R. A., Clark, J. J., & O'Regan, J. K. (1997, September). To See or Not to See: The Need for Attention to Perceive Changes in Scenes. Psychological Science , 8 (5), pp. 368-373.