You’d think that you’d spot a major change in your visual field, but research tells us otherwise. Learn more about this phenomena!
Last month, I had the opportunity to visit the Exploratorium with the NeuropPsych(ED) team—a popular museum in San Francisco. During our trip, we interacted with exhibits that explored the world through science, art, and human perception. The exhibit that interested me the most explored change blindness, a phenomenon centered around human perception.
Change blindness occurs when a change in the visual field goes undetected by its observer. In the exhibit, an image was projected, blinking every few seconds or so. Each time the image blinked, something changed—this could be a component of the scene switching colors, or even disappearing completely. Although the blinks lasted for less than a tenth of a second, it became increasingly harder to notice the changes. What interested me the most was that no matter how focused you were on a scene, a simple blink could make large changes undetectable. In fact, once the blinking was removed, the changes became obvious. In application to the real world, I learned that even the blinking of your own eyes can obscure changes in the world around you—even if they’re happening just under your nose.
Written by Julia Schlamp.
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