Look but don't See

It is strange that some people don’t recognise visual clues. Particularly in television, or in films. They miss an obvious signal in a film or a particular clue as if they cannot see it. I remember how in many of the old films I used to see the ‘edit’ punch mark. You may have seen this and if not, well, I can tell you, as nowadays they don’t use this system so you won’t be bothered by it as I was growing up. Once I knew about it, it really used to bother me, as I would always see it. Just before the change in a shot, there it was, ‘flashing’ at me from the corner. I often asked people if it bothered them and the would look at me blankly. “What?” “The little circle mark that keeps flashing”, I used to say. “No, I didn’t see it.” Was the standard reply. “But , you must have. It happened hundreds of times during the movie” I would reply exasperatingly. But they hadn’t noticed. (They probably didn’t like subtitle movies either as they say they can’t watch the movie and read the sub title at the same time. However, what the little flashing circle was, was this. Before digital editing, a film was specifically cut and joined at particular places to create the cross fades, or jump cuts you grew up seeing in films. We actually used to paste/glue or Sellotape (sticky tape) the various segments to each other. When we did that the film used to get a little scratch mark in the top right corner to signal to the negative printer that a change was coming up. It was usually a small irregular circle shape that flashed up in the top right corner, approximately two seconds, then again at around 12 frames (of the 25frames per second that films used to run at, so half a second or so), before the change.

So while I saw these things other didn’t. And this is why they could watch something over and over and not realise till nearly finished. Surely they recognised something they were looking at before. I know many don’t even recognise landmarks or important signs. We ran a test here in Australia for drivers who had been driving for more than ten years and asked them to identify a series of road signs. Mainly the standard signs. A give way sign, a stop sign, a speed limited sign, etc. On some, we made simple colour changes, or we changed the wording to the shapes they were used to, or turned the shape of the sign upside down etc, and sadly most couldn’t see what was wrong. Consequently they answered all the questions incorrectly. But it was clear, they didn’t actually read the road signs they went past every day. Part of this exercise was pointing out how much of driving is automatic as you think you already know what you are seeing, and maybe this is why there are so many traffic crashes.

(continued tomorrow)