“Contextual expectation, cognitive load, change blindness, source memory error, acoustic differences,” I rattled off glumly. “Any or all of these things could have been a factor.” It was the easiest question he’d asked me since he’d walked through my door. “Our brains are incredibly efficient at dealing with expected information, but falter in unexpected situations. You didn’t connect the dots for the same reason I didn’t: it seemed preposterous. We filter information based on relevance and familiarity. When you’re out of your usual context, the cues that normally alert us don’t line up the
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