# Right in front of your face:  is there a name for it?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-in-front-of-your-face-is-there-a-name-for-it/735658>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 24, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-in-front-of-your-face-is-there-a-name-for-it/735658 "2015-10-24T20:42:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-in-front-of-your-face-is-there-a-name-for-it/735658/21 "2015-10-27T07:43:12Z")

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> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> I found the thread I was thinking of earlier - [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=551388) - the (I think) opposite phenomenon to the one being discussed here is ‘priming’ - that is, when your mind is conditioned to notice or snap your attention to things that match a learned pattern.
> 
> I think something related might be happening here - maybe the ‘pattern’ in your mind for the TV remote somehow gets corrupted and you fail to see the real object because it doesn’t sufficiently match the pattern.

Yes or the first time you look at the object, for some reason you didn’t recognise it. Then when you look in the same area, you discount the object because you know you’ve already looked at it and it “isn’t” what you are looking for. So you see straight past it, till you somehow convince yourself to look afresh.

It’s a bit like a typo; if you miss it on the first read through you can go on missing it time after time. But then if you read the same thing a week later it stands out like dogs balls.

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-in-front-of-your-face-is-there-a-name-for-it/735658/22 "2015-10-27T08:33:29Z")

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> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> One time, the keys were obscured by a small piece of paper that was only just big enough to hide them (and didn’t even drape to properly cover them - and nothing much else was even on the table) - and my keys were ‘lost’. It took someone else to find them (and I looked like an idiot).

My family has been known to say “damnit, don’t put socks on my pocket-emptier!” (the _vacíabolsillos_, pocket-emptier, is that item or spot such as a bowl or the top of a bedside table, where a person empties their pockets).

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**Author:** ![WildBlueYonder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ce7236/32.png) [@WildBlueYonder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildBlueYonder)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-in-front-of-your-face-is-there-a-name-for-it/735658/23 "2015-10-27T12:48:34Z")

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Princhester is so right!

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