Seeing What’s Not There

What happens when we see something that is actually not present? Why do we think we see an object or activity that is manifestly not present?

The answer lies, again, in the fact that we only see in small fragments, and we fill in the rest with our knowledge, memories, models, and biases.

When we encounter a strange and unfamiliar scene, we may struggle to visualize the mortar between the bricks. As we fill in the gaps, we might look at the scene with biases that prevent us from seeing the scene accurately. We project things onto scenes and make predictions about what will be there. We are prone to accept illusions as reality.

We might see something that is not present because we lack the opportunity or inclination or skill to make complete sense of whatever we actually see in front of us.

Beliefs—however reasonable or outlandish—also contribute to our seeing. People often think they see ghosts, angels, and UFOs, when the scientific evidence suggests those things are exceedingly unlikely. The specifics of these visions—which draw from popular mythologies, like a flying saucer with lights for a UFO—suggest that the viewer is projecting his own images on the scene.

Eyewitnesses to crimes often see things that are not there. That is why circumstantial evidence is usually better and trials than eyewitness evidence.

As we look on a scene, deciding what is there and what isn’t, we make the most sense of it by thinking about the bigger picture—in both space and time.

In terms of space, we might apprehend more of the scene by consciously looking at different parts of our focal point in the scene. We might look at the ring of objects surrounding the focal point. Are those nearby things close and distant? Are they similar or different in size, shape, color, and light? Do they appear to be interacting with each other or focused on different activities? Phase by phase, we might explore a series of rings around that object.

Or perhaps we might follow the lines and shapes within the scene. Images usually contain vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines, which draw our eyes along distinctive paths. We might follow those lines—and then, to take control, we might work against those obvious pathways.

In terms of time, we might think of what we see as a moment of a story—or at least, as a moment in a sequence of events, which it always is. When we look on the scene, we almost always imagine what happened before and what might happen next.

We think of this picture as a scene in the middle of the story—“in media res” (“in the middle of the story”), to use the term of the Roman lyric poet Horace. Storytellers often begin their tale in the middle of the action, which spurs the audience to wonder what led to this point and where the tale might go.

When we storify an observation, we can either make our observations more or less robust. We can either see more or less clearly what’s there. We can either make sense of what’s not there – or we can impose other ideas on the scene.

Looking Forward