Why we do not see things in front of us

It turns out that our expectations are strongly influenced by our ability to notice what is right under our noses.

Attention job! Find a toothbrush in the picture.

Most people quickly notice a small green brush on the edge of the sink.

But much longer looking for - or not find - a large brush in the background. Suddenly?

This is due to our perception of the scale. Scientists from the University of California came to the conclusion that we do not notice the items, if their size does not fit their surroundingsHumans, but Not Deep Neural Networks, Often Miss Giant Targets in Scenes.. The researchers studied not only what people notice, but also as to their ability to be compared with computer skills.

Several participants and deep neural network (a computer system with machine vision) was given a second to find the object in the computer-generated images. Subject absent an image was depicted in a conventional scale or has been increased four times.

People do not notice an increase of subjects by 13% more than usual.

On the scale of the computer objects are not affected. This distortion is particularly pronounced when a person first looked at the picture with a larger object - in this case, the object seemed to become invisible.

This is not a flaw. This is a useful trick the brain, which helps us to quickly process visual information, find what you need and weed out the superfluous.

Miguel Eckstein (Miguel Eckstein), a professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Santa Barbara

Of course, it is unlikely that in real life we ​​have to search for objects in an enlarged scale. But another phenomenon associated with care are responsible for the fact that we can not find the keys, if you do not leave them where you would normally.

According to cognitive psychologists, is that we see depends on our expectations. object size - one of the factors influencing them.

Not waiting for something, we will, quite possibly, just do not pay attention to it.

This phenomenon, known more inattention blindnessIt helps explain how dozens of people could pass by a tree, to which were attached the money, and did not notice anything unusualFailure to see money on a tree: inattentional blindness for objects that guided behavior.. During other experiments, participants also did not notice the clown on unicycleDid you see the unicycling clown? Inattentional blindness while walking and talking on a cell phone., pistolInattentional blindness for a gun during a simulated police vehicle stop., Fighting in the streetYou Do Not Talk about Fight Club if You Do Not Notice Fight Club. and a man in a suit gorilla.