I’ve been to game reserves in South Africa a few times. I tell you, until you’ve been yourself, you’ve no idea how difficult it is to spot an elephant or a giraffe! Seriously! Huge big animals but in their natural habitat, really they’re not easy to spot. What gives them away? Movement. As you scan the bush, or a plain, or a hillside, the first thing which will catch your eye is a movement. If they stay stock still, they might be only yards away but you won’t see them till the last minute.
Many animals are good at detecting scent change. The slightest whiff of a predator, or a human being, arriving on the scene and they pick it up.
Another example of how we give priority to change detection is noise. I’m sure you’ll have had the experience of a background noise suddenly stopping and it’s only at that moment when it ceases that you become aware it was even there. You notice it when it goes away, not when it stays the same.
Change impacts on us. It catches our attention. A recent study has examined this phenomenon and interestingly shows that we are much better at detecting auditory changes than visual ones. I’m not sure that holds true for everyone. One of the things that NLP teaches is how we have different processing preferences – by that they mean that some of us are especially good at processing visual information, others auditory, and yet others, kinesthetic. From what I can see the researchers who produced this study didn’t make any allowances for that.
Heroes Not Zombies 
Great pictures, Dr. Bob. My daughter went over there on a mission trip. She was a high school photographer, so she brought home a lot of similar shots.
She came away very impressed how well the folks there do with so little and how spoiled much of the “civilized” world is.
When I see all that, I hope we humans don’t wreck what God did such a fine job of.
Dr. B
I got something a bit different out of that study, Bob.
You’re right though, people certainly have different preferences for processing and learning from sensory information. However my guess is that subjects were selected to decrease this variability- they were likely male, roughly equivalent in terms of age, SES, language, education and right-handed. (18 year old males, for instance, have been shown to be better able to discern & react to rapid changes in visual information when compared to their older counterparts)
As for their finding that we are better able to detect complex auditory changes over visual changes? Kinda makes sense when you consider how ridiculously complex language is…if one is to have a chance at understanding it’s subtleties, one must detect nuanced changes in pitch and inflection quickly. (Differences in how one says “it’s fine” to their significant other come to mind).
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you’re right about the selection process Kelli. In fact, one of things we always have to be wary about in psychological research in particular is the strong bias of researchers to use university students in their studies. Seems that a more prevalent characteristic of psychological research than in any other discipline.
I guess I’m not convinced that the detection of auditory change is that greater than visual – well, not for everyone anyway. But I do like your point about language and its nuances. Mind you a lot of communication is in the visual, isn’t it, with facial expression and body language? (interesting how our communications on the net miss out on both auditory AND visual signals!) 🙂