You See Less Than You Think
https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-see-less-than-you-think-1533914846 [www.wsj.com]
2018-08-11 00:50
The apparent richness of our perception is an illusion. The flow of our conscious experience is, in fact, remarkably sparse—not a fully detailed 3-D cinematic extravaganza, but a wonderfully evocative and continually evolving sketch, drawn in rapidly fading ink.
The researchers modified the display so that, outside a moving 15-letter window around where the reader’s eye was looking, all the other words were replaced with strings of the letter “x.” Someone looking over the participant’s shoulder would see a small window of English text moving along the screen amid a sea of meaningless letters. But the reader noticed absolutely nothing unusual.
Mr. Chater is a professor of behavioral science at Warwick Business School. This is adapted from his book “The Mind is Flat: The Remarkable Shallowness of the Improvising Brain,” being published Aug. 11 by Yale University Press.