Susan had just finished the call with her mother and the bell had rung, so like every other student in the school, she made her way to her next lesson. Well, almost every student at that moment two girls entered the library and made their way to a corner of the room that was empty. “Let's sit here,” Jen said to Tom as she pulled out a chair and sat down herself.
“Thanks. Its been a really strange day so far.” Tom told his new friend. “yeah it can be tough being the new girl but don’t worry it won’t be forever.” Jen Said to Tom trying to get the girl in front of her to relax before disappearing into one of the stacks of books to reappear shortly afterward. Hopefully, only for today, Tom thought to himself.
Tom was in the middle of reading the textbook that he had been given in his maths class that morning. He figured it was the best way to spend the next hour. He barely noticed Jen’s return. “What are you studying?” He asked her when saw the bundle of books that she had brought back to the table.
“Oh, sociology. We were given the task of explaining why some people fail to notice things that are right under their noses.” She answered him “Okay.” Was the only thing that Tom could think of saying in reply. “Don’t be like that its interesting its called Perceptual blindness,” Jen told her new friend. She then went on to read a section from the book that she had just brought back to the table. “Here listen to this.”
“The key aspect of Perceptual blindness or inattentional blindness which makes it distinct from other failures in awareness rests on the fact that the undetected stimulus is unexpected. It is the unexpected nature of said stimulus that differentiates inattentional blindness from failures of awareness such as attentional failures like the aforementioned attentional blink. It is critical to acknowledge that occurrences of inattentional blindness are attributed to the failure to consciously attend to an item in the visual field as opposed the absence of cognitive processing.”
“So basically if you don’t expect to see something there is a good chance you won’t see it,” Jen explained to Tom. For Tom suddenly everything that had happened up to that point now made sense to him. No-one had expected to see a boy dressed as he was so they didn’t it made a lot of sense to him anyway.
“Is everything okay?” Jen asked noticing the smile on Tom’s face. “Yeah, everything is fine. Just remembered something that is all.” Tom replied. “Quiet.” The librarian said to the two students who then turned their attention back towards their books.
