Dinesh's photos with the keyword: Nicholas Epley

Similarity is boring, but differences are exciting. This hypersensitivity to difference is built into our being, all the way down to our retinas. You and I can see the visible world because our eyes wobble back and forth ever so slightly and uncontrollably, jerking this way and that in what are known as “saccades.” These eye wobble allow your retina to detect differences, changes in texture and contour and lighting, and it is this ability to detect changes in visual input that enables sight. Paralyze your eyes with anesthetic to keep them from wobbling, and everything goes dark. Place a contact lens with an image tattooed on it on your retina, and the design will slowly become invisible as the lens begin to wobble in sync with your eye. ~ Page 127

Your belief serve as a lens for understanding what others are likely to believe, as well as how strongly they are likely to believe it. But your mind contains multitudes, and beliefs are not the one only lens that can alter your perceptions. Knowledge can also do it. For example, read the above sentence. Now please go back and count how many f’s appear in that sentence. That is important……. How many did you find? More than you can count on one hand? If not, then we have just confirmed that you are a terrific reader but a terrible counter. Try it again. Look harder, …….. See them all now? Most people who read this sentence fail to spot all six of the f’s on their first pass. Instead, most see only three. Why so few? This example has nothing to do with your beliefs and everything to you with your knowledge. Your expertise with English blinds you from seeing some of the letters. You know how to read so well that you can hear the sounds of the letters as you read over them. From your expert perspective, every time you se the word “of” you hear a v rather than f and, therefore, miss it. This is why first graders are more likely to find all six in this task than fifth graders, and why young children are likely to do better of this than you did as well. Your expert ears are clouding your vision. ~ Page 103