Scientists Find Believing Can Be Seeing

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Scientists at University College London have found the link between what we expect to see, and what our brain tells us we actually saw revealing that the context surrounding what we see is all important — sometimes overriding the evidence gathered by our eyes and even causing us to imagine things which aren't really there. A vague background context is more influential and helps us to fill in more blanks than a bright, well-defined context. This may explain why we are prone to 'see' imaginary shapes in the shadows when the light is poor. "Illusionists have been alive to this phenomenon for years," said Professor Zhaoping. "When you see them throw a ball into the air, followed by a second ball, and then a third ball which 'magically' disappears, you wonder how they did it. In truth, there's often no third ball — it's just our brain being deceived by the context, telling us that we really did see three balls launched into the air, one after the other." The original research paper is available on PLOS, the open-access, peer-reviewed journal."

Just one more reason to be careful

[somersault]

When you're out driving, you have to be more aware of the possible dangers that you will be facing, like cyclists and motorcyclists. A lot of people don't see them coming at junctions because they're just looking out for cars on the road..

Re:Pretty old news...

[morgan_greywolf]

Exactly. Vision is all in the brain -- you don't "see" with your eyes, you "see" with your brain. And your brain naturally filters what it sees. Sometimes these filters are wrong -- they make up stuff that isn't there. Conversely, many times you don't see something because you don't expect to see it. How many times have you went looking for some place that you wanted to go by looking it up online and then when you get there you go "Why, I must've driven by this place a thousand times and never even knew it existed!" That's because you weren't looking for it. You weren't expecting it all those 1,000 times you drove by it, so although the light reflections may have bounced through your eyes, your brain filtered it out -- hence you never "saw" it.

Here's an example

[kahei]

Well, here's an example. Suppose some guy picks up various scattered bits of facts -- a story on slashdot here, something about Mars kooks there. Now, he has an instinct -- or maybe it's hardwired at an even lower level than that -- to make up patterns around those scattered facts, to fill in the blanks. So he imagines a category of people who 'see things where nothing exists'. Before long, he's convinced enough of this specific phenomenon -- of this entity which is purely a product of his own tendency to create patterns to explain the phenomena he senses -- that he actually starts posting about this group of people on slashdot, as if there actually were one specific kind of person who has this trait!

And then other factors, psychological, move him to assume that he's 'better' than this entity that has popped up in his mind and that he now believes is an actual thing. He even begins to give patronising advice. To him, it's just as if he's *interacting* with this thing, this 'people who see things where nothing exists'. His self-deception is complete!

Far fetched? Maybe. But maybe not...

HTH

Eighteen observers...

[blunte]

18 observers is enough? Not that I necessarily disagree with the results they've gathered in this study, but the sample group seems awfully small....

Re:Here's an example

[Anonymous Coward]

grandparent had a very good point, and you have to go insult him. You know, even if he did act like he was better than them... guess what: he is. People who are capable of overcoming their imagination and sticking to reality ARE BETTER PEOPLE.

Re:seeing is believing...

[RAMMS+EIN]

``But apparently we (the dutch) are completely wrong.''

On the contrary. I think the saying is there exactly _because_ we naturally tend to do things the other way around. We believe something, and then we try to fit the evidence to our beliefs. The saying tells us to regard the evidence, and base our beliefs on that.

Re:News?

[argiedot]

That's pretty cool, you know. Rashomon [wikipedia.org] was like this but different. Also, is this related to the way that when you read you sometimes skip over spelling mistakes and get the right word? One of my classmates had written conjugation everywhere in his Astronomy notes instead of conjunction, and I didn't even notice when reading over them until I reached one that was only part written, the rest going off the page.

It's not always what they want to see.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

It is quite possible that the officer had a mindset to the effect that, hey this guy probably has a gun, and his or her mind see's what they wanted to see.

I doubt that all of the cops who shot innocent people because they thought they saw a gun in his hands wanted to see a gun. Some of them were probably afraid that a gun was what they saw, and reacted to that fear. Remember the Wizard's First Rule: "People will believe a lie either because they want to believe it's true or because they are afraid it might be true."

"He thought he saw..." "He looked again..."

[dpbsmith]

What the article doesn't say is that this phenomenon increases in middle age, both with respect to seeing and hearing. I'm not sure how much is due to actual declines in visual and auditory acuity; I'm inclined to think it's a cognitive effect, like common memory loss.

I've always supposed Lewis Carroll's poem, from _Sylvie and Bruno,_ was referring to this effect. Certainly "He thought he saw... he looked again and found it was..." is happening to me more frequently.

He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
"At length I realise," he said,
"The bitterness of Life!"

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister's Husband's Niece.
"Unless you leave this house," he said,
"I'll send for the Police!"

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
"The one thing I regret," he said,
"Is that it cannot speak!"

He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
"If this should stay to dine," he said,
"There won't be much for us!"

He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.
"Were I to swallow this," he said,
"I should be very ill!"

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.
"Poor thing," he said, "poor silly thing!
It's waiting to be fed!"

He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage Stamp.
"You'd best be getting home," he said:
"The nights are very damp!"

He thought he saw a Garden-Door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
A Double Rule of Three:
"And all its mystery," he said,
"Is clear as day to me!"

He thought he saw a Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
"A fact so dread," he faintly said,
"Extinguishes all hope!"

Re:Just one more reason to be careful

[sholden]

You mean things like stop signs, traffic lights, broken down cars blocking the lane, 5 year olds standing still at the side of the road?

AKA...

[McDutchie]

Scientists at University College London have found the link between what we expect to see, and what our brain tells us we actually saw revealing that the context surrounding what we see is all important -- sometimes overriding the evidence gathered by our eyes and even causing us to imagine things which aren't really there. A vague background context is more influential and helps us to fill in more blanks than a bright, well-defined context.

I think this phenomenon is often referred to as religion.

Re:Which is why...

[zoney_ie]

Police officers are trained and take on the risks of the job whereas innocent bystanders have no recourse against misjudged police shootings. Calling in police firepower only where likely to be needed is a sound strategy, even if it does in some cases put the police officers at greater risk. Better that than the population at large being at greater risk. Even with the police forces who are not routinely armed there have been misjudged shootings (e.g. Republic of Ireland, UK). There's no way I would want the police routinely armed. They should of course all be trained in firearms and have access to the best kit available, with armed officers ready to react when needed. The situation we have in Ireland is pathetic with the police having to use old army facilities for training.

The US is however probably a lost cause for gun control anyway with the genie being out of the bottle so to speak. Nevertheless, even acknowledging that reality, the situation there is obviously insane to anyone outside the US. There should at the very least be ongoing research and strategising as to how to normalise the situation there. Having more guns than people is *not* a normal situation, it's just a recipe for disaster.

Re:Just one more reason to be careful

[jellomizer]

Conditioning.
Take a normal English Class. The bulk of the class is trying to teach people to get meaning out of litature and learning to read between the lines to get the underlining meaning. So you learn that you get an A+ when you read when Tess got off the tractor and her hands felt numb, then translate it to the numbing dehuminizing effect of the approaching indrustral revolution. Vs. a C+ when you read the the same part and you stated it was a means to express the feeling that you get after you ride a tractor for a long time, the author probably wrote it because most people who is his book proably isn't a farmer, so they would be learning how it feels to drive a tractor.
We are trained to look so deeply and make meaning out of everything that it has driven our society batty. 20 Years ago a local grocery store called Price Chopper use to have a picture of a coin with a woman face on it with an Axe cutting the coin, the had to change the image of the coin because people beleaved that it was portraiting woman abuse. With the downfall of Science and Math education we are loosing the ability to see things at face value.

Re:Which is why...

[nexuspal]

Basically, it comes down to this. The bad guys with or without guns, would love to rampage and pillage society, with the only thing holding them back being the police and armed citiziens. This is a huge, huge, problem here, people with no moral compass who could care less if you lived or died. The ONLY deterent to them is force, it's all they understand. If there were no threat of force they WOULD DEFINITELY form roving gangs and take all they could.

That is the problem in the states imo, we don't focus on these lower income demographic (typically) people to the degree that we should. If we brought those lower classes closer to middle class, the proerty rights issue would be of far less concern, as most people would see the error in acting like primitve animals, taking what they want as long as they feel they'll get away with it, at the cost of my life and others.