Thanks to an unusual experiment, scientists came to the conclusion that life in the city radically changes the way we perceive the world around us.
Live in the stone jungle of a metropolis long enough, and in the most ordinary, everyday objects - cars, equipment, furniture - you will begin to see unexpected things. The researchers found this out by mixing photographs of artificial objects with images of animals and then interviewing 20 volunteers. People who live in cities for a long time focused their attention on artificial things, while animals faded into the background.
To find out if the environment can change people's perceptions, scientists have put together hundreds of photographs of animals and man-made objects such as bicycles, laptops or benches. They then superimposed them on top of each other, creating hybrid images - for example, a horse combined with a table (top left corner) or a rhino combined with a car (top right corner). When the volunteers watched the hybrids flash across the screen, they simultaneously categorized each one into categories: small animal, large animal, small human-made object, or large human-made object.
In their article, the researchers report that the overwhelming majority showed a bias towards the perception of human-made objects. After examining how the audience analyzed the photo, scientists came to the conclusion that the perception of people fundamentally changes depending on the environment in which they live. More often than not, people rely on their own experience when it comes to perceiving information - for example, a suburbanite might mistake a snake for a garden hose. So, day after day, big cities change us - even if we don't notice it.
Vasily Makarov