Research• 1 min read
Visual Perception and the Bottleneck of Attention
Why you sometimes 'miss' seeing an enemy that is clearly on your screen.
Overview
Inattentional blindness is a psychological phenomenon where an individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus in plain sight. In gaming, this is the #1 cause of 'unlucky' deaths. Your brain is a filtering machine; it can only process a small percentage of the visual data hitting your retinas. This article explains the 'Spotlight of Attention' and how to manage it. We discuss 'scanning patterns'—how to train your eyes to check corners and the HUD without losing focus on the center of the screen. By understanding the limits of your visual attention, you can learn to 'broaden the spotlight' and reduce the number of times you're caught off-guard by something that was 'right there.'