The Claire Byrne Show
Why is it that objects can ‘disappear’ even when they are in front of us?
14 May 2026
Chapter 1: Why do we sometimes fail to see objects right in front of us?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance.
Have you ever not been able to see something that is right in front of you? Maybe it's your keys or your phone or a pair of shoes or all three when you're desperately trying to get out the door. So why does it happen? Why do things remain hidden in plain sight? I'm joined by Dr. Anne Keogh, who's Principal Clinical Psychologist. You're welcome to the programme. Thank you, Clare.
Why is it that we can't see things that we're looking for when it is literally right in front of us?
It's such an interesting phenomenon.
Chapter 2: How does attention act as a filter for what we see?
I think most people have experienced this. And why it happens, really, I suppose we assume that the eyes see everything and that sight is passive. However, the brain receives so much sensory information every second that we're walking around that that our attention, our awareness acts like a filter.
So your attention or awareness is not focused on those three things, as you said, that you were looking for, even though you're looking for them. It's distracted. Maybe you're stressed, running late for something. If we took in all the information we see would be overloaded. So the brain is selective. It picks what it looks at and kind of carefully curates that for us.
Chapter 3: What is inattentional blindness and how does it affect our perception?
So our attention determines our reality. So you have the experience of, people have had it, I'm sure, where you're checking your fridge for something three times and you realize eventually it's there. Or you realize you're looking for your glasses, but they're actually on your head. And they're great examples because your sensory information, so your body does know your glasses are on your head.
It can feel them against your head, literally. But you're not focused on that. You're too busy with the idea that you're going to see them through your eyes. So you're looking around, trying to find them and your attention or your awareness has come away from the feeling of them on your head, if that makes sense.
So say if I'm looking for my pen, which is I can see now it's in front of me. But if I come in here and I'm looking for that pen, have I told my brain you can expect to see the pen on the desk?
Chapter 4: How does stress impact our ability to find things?
But if the pen is on a chair, I can't see it because I'm not ready for that.
Well, exactly. So your brain creates an expectation of where something should be. And if it doesn't match your prediction through your eyes, the brain can literally overlook it. So you could be actually looking at the pen, but not seeing it because you expect it to be on the table, not the chair.
So we think like your eyes are just taking the facts, but what you thought would happen influences what you see, which is not what people think happens.
So this is called unintentional blindness, is it?
Yeah, inattentional blindness. Inattentional blindness. You're blind where your attention is not focused. So there's a great example people have probably seen online.
It's just really contradictory before we get to the example, because if I'm looking for my keys, my attention is on my keys, right? That's where everything is focused. I need to get out of the house. I need to find the keys.
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Chapter 5: Why do we sometimes forget what we're looking for when we change rooms?
Exactly. Exactly.
So stress, getting out of the house is a perfect example. So stress, the stress of having to get out of the house narrows your attention. So you are more anxious, more rushed, more kind of flustered and your brain becomes more selective and less flexible. So while you're thinking keys, keys, keys, it is, you're like distracted by that, the pressure. So it shortcuts and then it does a prediction.
So you'll keep seeing them where you thought they should be. You won't actually, but they're not there. And then your brain can't refocus on where they might actually be. Or it could look past them if they're placed somewhere else and not necessarily pick up that visual information because maybe you're a bit distressed because you're late.
So we need to take the stress out of the situation and we'll probably find the thing that we're looking for quicker.
Yeah.
Well, which is often impossible. So what you end up doing in that situation is asking someone else to look.
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Chapter 6: What are the differences in visual processing between genders?
And then you feel like quite an idiot because they find them instantly because they're not there. They just come along to look for that thing. They're not influenced by how your brain is short circuiting or feeling at the time. And which is, you know, can be silly because they think that they were right in front of you the whole time. And you think, oh, my God, I have to go now.
You know, a listener says, what about when the thing you want is where it should be, but you still can't see it?
Does that happen? It absolutely happens. And people like that's when something's in the fridge, but you check the fridge three times and you didn't see that it was in there. So you're not, I think the example would be you're not taking in everything in that fridge in one go. If you open it and look for 10 seconds, you're taking in what your brain focuses on.
Even though, say, you're looking for the butter in the fridge, you're sort of overwhelmed possibly with other things in the fridge or a thought about something earlier or something else to come. There's lots happening in the brain. So it doesn't actively perceive the butter because even though you're looking for it, it's distracted elsewhere.
We're all too busy all of the time.
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Chapter 7: How can our expectations influence what we see?
Is this related as well to walking into a room for something and by the time you get into the room you've forgotten what the thing is you're looking for?
Absolutely. And most people have that or you head upstairs, the same thing. One of the features about that one is that crossing a doorway, so like changing location, if you like, in your house, changes the context in your brain. So the map in your brain has to shift. And then with that map shift, you lose what you were coming for. So people will walk back. They always say, retrace your steps.
Then you go back to the other room and you realize, hang on, that's exactly what I was looking for. So the queue kicks off again.
Mm hmm.
It could be a matter of seconds for all that happening.
Because we often feel that we are losing it, you know, or there is something seriously wrong if we have forgotten within seconds what the thing was that we were looking for. There are some studies that suggest that women on average perform better in cluttered environments when they're looking for items. Men perform better in tasks involving spatial visualisation or mental rotation.
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Chapter 8: What strategies can help us find lost items more effectively?
Do you agree with that?
It's not so gender specific. I mean, people know their own experience, but we have plenty of women who are also good at things that people would say that men are good at. And likewise, so there are lots of stereotypes around gender and visual processing. The actual differences are quite small, but we're culturally accustomed to kind of expect that.
So maybe women get more practice at one thing, men get more practice at the other. They're more familiar. Now, we'll all know someone who's really good at finding things and we'll all know someone who's really good at reverse parking, if you like, if that's a visuospatial task. But we sort of always, maybe the men in either role or the women in either role stand out.
So we kind of overly have a bias towards kind of culturally what we think would be more appropriate sometimes. The difference is actually quite small.
I have a child in my house who is brilliant at finding things. So I find myself not worrying about losing things or not being able to find the keys because I have somebody on hand who knows where everybody's stuff is all of the time. And I highly recommend it, Anne.
Yeah, no, it is. It's absolutely fabulous. I have one of them in my house. And they get called. So what you're talking about there is visual discrimination, visual processing. So if you gave them a, whereas Wally will say, they can see quicker, they discriminate faster. Other people are totally... kind of in a disarray about all the different things they're taking in the picture.
So they're fabulous to have around. We also probably have a good reverse parker, like different visuospatial strengths, people have them. It's not so gendered. It's just, I think we should celebrate whoever's good at whatever.
Yeah, and we need them all. And thanks very much for being with us. That's Dr. Anne Keogh.
The Clare Byrne Show with Aviva Insurance. Weekday mornings at nine on Newstalk. Conversation that counts.
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