It's important to state that we do not see so much as recognize. Before data from the eyes is processed it is synthesized with memories, and so as much as 80% of what we 'see' is simply an exercise in matching visual data with memory data.
This goes some way to explaining why being a tourist can be mentally exhausting; work cannot be outsourced to memory, but rather the mind works double-time to both take in full-bandwidth visual data and to store new information. Quite apart from this, basic values -- normally guarded closely by confirmation bias -- are b... (read more)
It's important to state that we do not see so much as recognize. Before data from the eyes is processed it is synthesized with memories, and so as much as 80% of what we 'see' is simply an exercise in matching visual data with memory data. This goes some way to explaining why being a tourist can be mentally exhausting; work cannot be outsourced to memory, but rather the mind works double-time to both take in full-bandwidth visual data and to store new information. Quite apart from this, basic values -- normally guarded closely by confirmation bias -- are b... (read more)