This TED talk by Kyle Eschen, entitled “The art of cognitive blindspots,” explores the idea of cognitive vulnerabilities. He exploits human psychology through magic to illustrate how humans can have blindspots of perception and awareness, known as inattentional blindness. He uses a variation on the classic “cup and ball” trick to show how people can look directly at something and completely miss the important parts. At the end of the video, after he pulls off several tricks, he explains how magic is really just about understanding these blindspots and exploiting them. Specifically, he notes that the blindspots are a lot bigger than we would expect. This relates to our discussion of mindbugs earlier in the semester. Once we understand that we have these potential gaps of knowledge, we can address them, but it is so hard to realize that we have them in the first place.

https://www.tedxvienna.at/watch/the-art-of-cognitive-blindspots-kyle-eschen-tedxvienna/