Whats in Your Blind Spot?

We frantically search for our "lost" keys that are lying in plain sight on the kitchen counter. We don't we see the keys. Why not? Because we already decided "the keys are not there." And once we make that decision, we create a blind spot in our awareness. The result is that we don't see the keys where we don't expect them to be.

If we miss seeing keys out in the open because we decide the keys aren't there, what else could we be missing because we decide it's not there? Could we be "blind" to other possibilities and opportunities that are right under our nose?

What's New, Pussycat?

A mind-blowing scientific experiment reveals how the early physical environment of kittens determines what they are able to see-and not see-as they grow up. Two-week-old kittens are placed in a room with walls painted with vertical stripes and kept there as they mature. Almost from the moment they are able to see, the kittens live in an environment of vertical stripes. Later, the cats' world changes. They're removed from their vertically striped surroundings and placed in a room painted with horizontal stripes. Surprisingly, our furry felines don't see the horizontal stripes. Bang! They run right smack into the walls painted with horizontal stripes, time and time again. Why? Scientists discovered that because the cats don't have horizontal stripes in their environment as they grow up, the brains of the cats don't develop the neurons that recognize horizontal stripes. So when elements they've never been exposed to appear in the cats' world, their brains don't register the new elements in their environment. Yikes! Could we be unable to recognize elements in our current environment because those elements were missing when we grew up? Yes, we could! But before we look for aspects of life we might not be seeing, let's look for aspects we might not be hearing as well.

What'd You Say?

Studies with babies reveal how the early auditory environment of babies determines what they are able to hear-and not hear-as they grow up. Research shows that young babies have the ability to hear the full range of vocal sounds produced by the speech of all the human languages in the world. But then, babies are raised hearing only the narrow range of speech sounds within their social environment. Eventually, because they hear solely the speech sounds found within one culture, babies lose their ability to distinguish the full range of vocal sounds found in all human cultures.

This explains why Japanese children are unable to pronounce the English "r" sound that does not exist in their native language. "The common result," according to a researcher at the University of California, "is essentially that if perceptual experience is limited, one will not be able to perceive things outside that experience." This is why, in everyday life, we're not able to recognize-or "hear"-concepts that we weren't exposed to in our upbringing.

Casting a Spell of Limitations

We all grow up in families and societies where we are only exposed to a limited view of life-like kittens only viewing vertical stripes and babies only hearing speech sounds from their social environment. Our "stripes" consist of a limited range of cultural patterns of sights and sounds. These cultural patterns give signals to the brain that tell us "the way life is" within that limited environment. And the brain mistakenly "thinks" it knows "the way life is" outside of that narrow-minded environment.

Growing up in a limited environment has a comparable effect to being hypnotized. For example, when people are hypnotized, they can be told that certain elements exist or don't exist in their environment. With hypnotic suggestion, a person can be told that there are no red books in a bookstore. And, even though many of the books are red, the person won't see any red books. The hypnotic suggestion creates a blind spot, or filter, in the person's perception of the world.

Similarly, we're hypnotized by our parents and society to see certain aspects of reality-and not to see other aspects of reality. Then, as adults, we only see the range of possibilities that we were exposed to as we grew up. We don't recognize any alternatives outside of the range of viewpoints presented to us in our youth. Options and opportunities that we weren't exposed to don't even register with the brain.

By the very nature of how we're raised, we develop blind spots. And these blind spots often prevent us from seeing-and taking advanta