Change Blindness



I can see a movie numerous times… and with each viewing… I’ll see a detail I missed the first time around… We’re all victims of Change Blindness… a visual phenomenon… where exploitation from many folks… including movie directors… and advertisers abound. Change Blindness is a natural brain bias… not a visual suspension. When viewing scenes or situations… we typically miss changes occurring before us that are easily seen… once brought to our attention.

 Change blindness … requires a significant change to occur … in combination… with brief interruptions… such as  lights flickering… people moving… or tumultuous explosions causing a stir… For example… change blindness may strike… when a performing clown… or monkey one man band… distracts us from realizing right before us… a stand-up comedian is being hooked off stage by the cane from another’s hand… or when we rubberneck an active wreck … and dismiss the distraction… as simply benign… not realizing until seconds later… we just bypassed our approaching …road exiting sign.

The transitory disruption of change blindness… is often confused … with “In attentional blindness” or focus failure… where gazing our eyes on one non-changing object causes “other still object” unconscious exclusion behavior… 

Change blindness differs from in attentional fixed object bias blindness… in that… for us to successfully detect change  during a distraction… our brain must be able to compare a current image in our field of view… to another we hold in memory before the changing action.     In contrast… in attentional blindness does not require any comparison to memory… just a recognition that a fixed focus places viewing other still objects in awareness jeopardy.

Change blindness … is where… significant change… occurs in our view without our mind’s eye… seeing the MOVE…   It’s a funny feeling to know… our “for sure” view of reality… for ourselves… and others… when it comes to change… may not always be… something we can ultimately PROVE…

Copyright Alan P. Xenakis, MD, Doc X MD and Audra RN Funny Feelings  Air Date January 31st , 2019

Change Blindness Doc X MD and Audra RN Funny Feelings©