A new study shows that what we see is often a distortion of what is really happening. A short article about that study provides a good overview: Altered images: New research shows that what we see is distorted by what we expect to see:
New research shows that humans “see” the actions of others not quite as they really are, but slightly distorted by their expectations.
The study is here: Perceptual teleology: expectations of action efficiency bias social perception.
I think it is fair to speculate that the conclusions of that study apply not just to visual information, but to all information. For example, much of what we consider to be psychological continuity is habit based on introspective deformities.
See Psychology as “signs of something else” for more on this topic.
first posted AUGUST 8, 2018
UPDATE: FIML practice accurately identifies and corrects all kinds of mental, psychological, emotional, and perceptual distortions as they happen in real-world settings. Pretty much everyone knows distortions are happening but we do almost nothing about them. Instead of dealing with distortions and preventing them from snowballing, virtually all people everywhere rely on default stock strategies to retreat from them, a technique which itself engenders fear and helplessness in the face of real human interaction. I believe the absence of anything resembling FIML practice in world history is testament to widespread hierarchical sociopsychological dependence on what are essentially clichés. ABN
American Buddhist Net 