A bird in the

hand is worth

two in the

the bush.

Can you spot the error in the above passage? Look it over again. Still don’t see it? Let me give you a hint: scrutinize the last two lines. Write it out if you have to, bringing the last line up to the line above it. Now do you see it?

When reading this passage, most people will skip right over the extra “the” in the fourth line. In studies, most can read the passage numerous times without ever spotting the error. It’s an example of how our mindsets are distorting our perception on a regular basis.

Despite what many believe, your brain doesn’t passively receive information from the world around you and then feed it into your conscious exactly how it is. The brain is constantly distorting the information we receive and filtering this stimulus according to one’s expectations. When reading this familiar passage, your mind has already set up preconceived notions about what it expects to find, and those assumptions prevent us from seeing what is right in front of us.

Here’s the real conundrum to ponder: If we can be completely blind to a glaring error in a simple 12 word passage, even when reading it multiple times, what else are we failing to see? In what other ways are our mindsets distorting our perspective, molding the world around us according to our preconceived notions, and in the process, causing us to miss things that are right in front of us?