Last week, I read Terry Pratchett’s Wee Free Men, in which the young main character, Tiffany, is a budding witch. One of the main characteristics of being a witch, according to Pratchett’s rules, is the possession of First Sight. It is explained to Tiffany by a pictsy (not to be confused with a pixie) headwoman thus:
“…Ye have the First Sight and the Second Thoughts, just like yer granny. That’s rare in a bigjob.”
“Don’t you mean second sight?” Tiffany asked. “Like people who can see ghosts and stuff?”
“Ach, no. That’s typical bigjob thinking. First Sight is when you can see what’s really there, not what your heid tells you ought to be there… Second sight is dull sight, it’s seeing only what you expect to see. Most bigjobs ha’ that…”
-Pratchett, 159
As it turns out, the pictsy woman was exactly correct about human perceptions. Shortly after I finished Wee Free Men, I started reading Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation at work. In her chapter about animal perception, she talks about inattentional blindness in humans.
Posted by Dana
