Blogging is new to me. I’ve been reading blogs for quite some time about the new restaurant in the block or movie reviews but I’ve never attempted to write my own blog. I just don’t have the courage to write something and technically publish it to the online users all over the world. But well, for me, anything new is an adventure so I’ll give this a shot.
It’s pretty fun to explore using our senses especially our eyes. Vision is a very special gift to every human being. With the emergence of technology, we still have to take care of our eyes. Our eyes take us to many places. I’d like to focus on visual perception in most of my blogs because I am somehow frustrated with my visual capacities. From the age of 4, I’ve been required to wear corrective glasses. 18 years later, I can hardly see without my contact lenses or my high-graded glasses. I was wondering if it was only because of my condition that I hardly spot differences in two similar pictures or situations or it’s common among individuals. A lot of people would say that they have clear vision but does that guarantee that you perceive everything that is around you especially improbable changes?
Let me introduce to you the concept of change blindness. It is a trend where people unable to notice changes occurring to objects within their visual fields. Some would say that their eyes are just dishonest with what they see but is that true? I would say that I know a few gifted people who are very keen to these changes especially when they are familiar to the environment like their own rooms or workplace but most people aren’t. Are you susceptible to change blindness?
A study done 2004 suggests that a lot of people hardly notice changes in their environment which is improbable. Lead researcher Melissa Beck, PHD, of George Mason University conducted an experiment which backs up the concept of change blindness. She hypothesized that people are more likely to notice changes they can logically anticipate than improbable ones. People tend to closely monitor properties that are likely to change. To further test this hypothesis, the researchers took photos of 10 familiar places and altered each photo twice, one with a probable change and the other with an improbable change. After which, the researchers showed the participants 20 photos, 10 original, 5 probable alteration and 5 improbable alteration. The researchers asked the participants to come up with a story about the scene showed to them. Half way through the experiment, the altered photo would replace the original photo in the computer screen. The researchers also grouped the participants into performance group and prediction group. The performance group weren’t informed that there will be a change in the picture while the prediction group was informed. The performance group only noticed about 40 percent of probable changes and 20 percent of improbable change while the prediction group noticed 60 percent of improbable and 70 percent of probable changes. This clearly illustrates that we are keener to probable changes but sometimes, we tend to overlook at these changes. It is harder to notice improbable changes even when we think that it’s very easy to detect them.
I find this study to have many practical uses. In everyday situations, we tend to be confident with what we see in our two eyes but this experiment proves otherwise. It shows that we have less conscious control over what we actually see. One lucky person may have a photographic memory but it doesn’t ensure that he or she can actually detect major and minor changes that happen in the environment. As the article suggest, we might have a rich visual picture of everything but we struggle in details. Are your eyes dishonest? Check: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/03/31/science/20080331_ANGIER_GRAPHIC.html#step1
Also watch these videos about change blindness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAnKvo-fPs0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrA-69hJlEg
Goldstein, E. B. (2010). Sensation and perception (8th ed.). California, USA: Wadsworth.
Greer, M (2004) People don't notice unexpected visual changes--though they predict they will. Monitor on Psychology, 35 (8), page 10. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep04/visual.asp
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