Getting into the mundane routine of life is normal, it can and will happen to anyone at some point in time. For years, I had the same nightly routine as I headed home from work. Once I’d get home, I’d park my car underneath a big oak tree on the side of the house that was near our large lawn covered in more oak trees and get the mail before going inside. I knew as I pulled up to the house, my spot would be open as none of my roommates liked parking there, and I knew there was always mail waiting for me in the mailbox.
One night, just like the other nights, I pulled into my parking spot under the large oak tree and started walking towards the mailbox. There were shadows of trees in my vision, but my main focus was getting to the mail and getting inside as soon as I could. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, in fact, it was just like any other night. Although, as I got closer to the mailbox, I heard a leaf crunch and my attention was automatically taken to my surroundings. My surroundings, which before were just a mix of shadows were now possible prowlers. When I looked to my left, I saw a deer standing so still it looked like a piece of taxidermy. I matched its body language, shocked that as I walked through the lawn I completely overlooked a large animal standing just a few feet away.
It was as if I had tunnel vision, I did the same thing every night and never noticed the things right next to me. I questioned how many possible deer’s I had walked past unknowingly before. The only reason I noticed the deer was because it got scared of my coming closer. I turned my attention when the stimuli around me changed. My past experiences of the seemingly unchanging nightly routine had clouded my perception of changes around me. The Bayesian inference may be partly to blame for my expected results of how my nightly routine would go. The Bayesian inference is defined as, “the idea that our estimate of the probability of an outcome is determined by the prior probability (our initial belief) and the likelihood (the extent to which the available evidence is consistent with the outcome). (Goldstein, 2015).
While my prior experience may have impacted how the expectation of my routine would go, the distorted view of the night, shadows, and perception similarities is what made me not see the deer standing close by. I was not actively seeking a deer and I was focused fully on my way to the mailbox making my surroundings blur into nondescript shapes. My situation with the deer is a great example of how our perception changes due to our stimulus, distance, and environment. My vision blurred around the mailbox making the deer look just like another oak tree, blending into the background. We can’t always be on high alert, taking in every inch of our surroundings, but it makes me try to be more vigilant knowing that I missed a large animal standing a few feet away.
Work Cited
Goldstein, B. E. (2015). Cognitive Psychology (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.
I also have a similar experience but with two deer and very traumatizing. I am aware when it comes to driving especially at night with the route that looks like you are driving in the middle of the woods. The one night on my way home from work, I saw the first deer, so I had slowed down and then while I had started to speed up again, I did not see that other deer, slammed right into the front passenger side. While my car was not that bad, I was terrified and made my boyfriend to come get me a few blocks down. I even started going to a different route to work and only go on that route when the sun is out but it still took me a few weeks before I would even drive my car and I watched everything even if I was not driving and sometimes my mind would ply tricks and I would freak out and have to lookback one ore time before I would keep going.
Sorry, just wanted to add my resource.
Goldstein, B. E. (2015). Cognitive Psychology (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Hello, I had a very similar situation happen to me recently about two months ago. I had been living with one of my coworkers at the time because my new apartment was not ready yet. They live in a nice development with the woods and a creek behind their house. I was still very new to their house and trying to get accustomed to my surroundings. Some mornings I start work at 7am. On this particular morning, I started at 7am, meaning I would have to leave their house at about 6:15am. The sun was still rising and I was still trying to wake up. I was walking out of their house and started walking to my car, until I heard what sounded like someone behind me. I quickly then stood up straight and did not know if I should turn around or just run to my car. I slowly turned around and saw a deer standing right at the edge of their driveway, which was about 15 feet from where I was at the time. Realizing I must have walked by it and had been pretty close, I was wide awake. A lot of people in the early morning have their routine and do not change it. Helmholtz had the idea of the unconscious inference, which is, when our perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions or inferences that we make about the environment. I had my routine that morning and I did not consciously realize I walked by the deer until I heard it move. Big question is, did this cause me to become more conscious of what was going on in my surroundings?
That is crazy, but I have also had similar encounters with people and animals. I am usually very aware of my surroundings, but when I do things that are routine, I am too comfortable with what I am doing. Almost like what happened in your story. Our perception of different events/times of day changes on a daily basis. At night specifically, our perceptive and how we perceive things will change and be heightened because of the darkness and inability to see our surroundings. I had something like this happen to me when I came home late at night onetime from work and like you, walked right past a whole entire family of raccoon that were nesting in the field right beside my house. I only noticed them when ever my dog went outside that night and started barking… I’m very thankful it was not a large animal that I completely missed. Gestalts Laws of perception explain this phenomena perfectly. Our brains focus on what is important and what is in the moment. Proximity can often be forgotten because of how comfortable we are with our surroundings and we miss things that we could have seen.
https://mygestaltherapy.com/gestalt-laws-of-perception-explained/
Hello, this situation has actually happened to me before but instead of it being a deer it was a bear. I had been staying with my aunt and uncle two summers ago and every night when I got back to the house I would park the car, unlock the back door and go in. I hadn’t even recognized the bear until I got in the back door and checked out the screen door and there it was only fifteen feet away. It is very easy to miss details and situations occurring around you, especially when you are normally aware of the outcome. Do you think that after this happened only your coming home routine changed? Or since that, have you tried to be more alert in all of your daily routines? Sometimes when ones perception changes in one occasion, it causes a sort of ripple effect into others as well.