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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 24, 2026

A Method for Investigating Change Blindness in Pigeons Columba Livia

A Method for Investigating Change Blindness in Pigeons Columba Livia

Published on: September 7, 2018

Attention "blinks" differently for plants and animals.

Benjamin Balas¹, Jennifer L Momsen²

¹Psychology Department, Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108.

CBE Life Sciences Education

|September 4, 2014

Summary

People struggle to see plants as well as animals due to "plant blindness." This study reveals visual attention processes plants differently, potentially explaining why we overlook their importance.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive psychology
Plant science
Visual perception

Background:

Students often prefer animals over plants, leading to poor recall and underrepresentation in classrooms.
Plant blindness describes the tendency to overlook plants and their ecological functions.
Few studies have investigated perceptual differences in how humans process plants versus animals.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether distinct perceptual differences exist in how the human visual system processes plants and animals.
To explore the potential contribution of visual processing to plant blindness.

Main Methods:

Utilized the attentional blink paradigm, an established method in visual cognition.
Compared the ability of participants to detect images of plants versus animals in rapid visual sequences.

Main Results:

Participants demonstrated better detection rates for animals compared to plants.
Visual attention exhibited a different refractory period following the detection of a plant image.

Conclusions:

Fundamental differences in visual processing may underlie plant blindness.
Perceptual and physiological constraints on visual processing could explain zoocentrism and inform strategies to overcome it.