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perception
Your brain fills in the edges of your vision.
When shown a photograph, people consistently recall seeing more of the scene than was actually present in the frame.
This is called boundary extension. Your visual system anticipates what should exist beyond the borders of a view based on typical spatial relationships. Your memory stores this reconstructed version rather than the specific image you actually encountered.
Your mind is a curator that refuses to leave a gap in your perception.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Intraub and Richardson (1989), boundary extension
- What the check found
- Boundary extension is a foundational, well-documented finding in cognitive psychology, and Intraub and Richardson (1989) is widely recognized as the seminal work establishing the phenomenon.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.