Article Analysis: To see or not to see (Rensink et al.

1997)

When brief blank fields are placed between alternating displays of an original and modified
scene, a signal failure of perception is induced. Such changes often become very difficult to
observe even if the change is large, recurring, is expected to occur. This process is called
changed blindness i.e. induced failure of observer to identify large changes in a visual display.
Reinsink conducted four experiments to examine the mechanism behind changed blindness. For
this purpose, Reinsink developed a flicker paradigm that simulated the visual events resulted
from eye movements but not depended on the eye movement to initiate scene changes.
Experiments results showed that under flicker conditions, observe take a long time to perceive
large changes in the images of natural images.
Results of the study support the hypothesis that representation at initial stage of visual processing
is highly volatile; and hence focused attention is required to stabilize them adequately to support
the observation of change. They found that this difficulty is neither due to disruption in the
information received, nor due to disruption in its storage. However, the difficulty to perceive
image is highly depended on the significance of the part of the scene that is being changed and
identification is faster for the structures of central interest and slower for those of marginal
interest. The study therefore suggests two proposals. First, visual perception of change in an
object occurs only due to the focused attention. Second, without focused attention, the content of
visual memory is replaced by subsequent stimuli, and hence can not be used to make comparison
between two images. They suggest that changed blindness could be resulted from visual
disruption such as blinking, flickering, or eye movement.
This is logical to think that people see with their open eyes, but the reality is that attention play a
major role in visual Perception. Research in the area of visual perception and focus is applicable
to many real-world tasks. The ability to detect changes in our environment is very important but
people often fail to notice major things due to changed blindness. In this way, Rensink et al.
(1997) experiment has strong implications in the real world. Almost all of us experience
inattentional blindness from time to time. For example, most of the people often fail to notice
some important things like obvious slipups in a movie due to inattentional blindness. This means
when people give too much focus on one thing such as actions of main character, they might not
notice unexpected things entering their visual field. Similarly, people often fail detect changes
happening in the environment while driving which sometimes can lead to dire even fatal
consequences. Researchers have found that distractions like using phone while driving can affect
the attention and can lead to increased changed blindness (Galpin et al. 2009). Moreover,
changed blindness can also impact our social interactions by making a minor mistakes due to less
focus on important events.
Galpin, A., Underwood, G., Crundall, D.J.T.r.p.F.t.p. and behaviour (2009) 'Change blindness in driving
scenes', 12(2), 179-185.

Rensink, R.A., O'Regan, J.K. and Clark, J.J.J.P.s. (1997) 'To see or not to see: The need for attention to
perceive changes in scenes', 8(5), 368-373.