This episode requires taking a look at some visuals. You can find them here.
Here’s the official logo for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Take a quick look at it before continuing to read this article.
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No sooner had it been revealed to the public when a commenter on Reddit noted that it looked like a facepalm. Other Redditers immediately chimed in, “CAN’T UNSEE.”
The “Can’t Unsee” meme is all over the internet, and refers to a fascinating function of the brain: once your perception is changed in a particular way, you literally can’t go back to your old way of perceiving.
You may have seen three hands wrapped around a soccer ball when you first glanced at the FIFA logo. If you’re familiar with the world cup, you may have noted that the hands form the rough shape of the actual cup that goes to the winning team.
But once you saw the word “facepalm,” there is it, isn’t it? Try NOT to see the yellow hand covering the chagrined face — impossible.
Here’s a different example of #cantunsee, courtesy of Andy Clark’s 2023 book The Experience Machine. What do you see when you look at this image?
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I’ll tell you what it is: a black and white rendering of a greyscale photograph.
And I’ll write a couple more paragraphs so your eyes don’t accidentally see the photograph itself before you’re ready.
Most people who are shown this image see blotches of black ink and white spaces in the rough shape of a rectangle. (Of course, there’s isn’t any rectangle, but we’ll let that curiosity pass for now.)
The really interesting this about this image is that, after you see the second image, you’ll never be able to see it the same way again: as random blotches. You brain will have been irrevocably changed, with no going back. So don’t continue down this page unless you’re sure that you want to change your perception forever; as we used to say during playground tag, “no backsies.”
Ready for the second image?
OK, here it comes…
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You don’t have to look at it for long. A quick glance will probably do the trick.
Now scroll back up to the previous image. Do you see the Dalmatian? Even if you try not to?
Do your eyes pay special attention to one area of the image now? I’m guessing it’s the eyes and nose that have additional salience compared to when you first looked a couple of minutes ago.
OK, so that’s a cool / cute / pointless phenomenon that you can now use to win bar bets. Beyond that, so what?
Here’s the thing: #cantunsee is how we process everything. The words you’re reading now were once scribbles on paper, until you learned to read. Now you can’t look at this scribbles without hearing words in your head.
Every thing in your world is filtered through your model of the world, and every time you add new information to your model you change how you relate to that thing.
And it’s true of people as well.
Your inability to unsee can be positive, as in the case of the Dalmatian — you can now find meaning that earlier eluded you.
And it can be, arguably, negative, if I ruined your enjoyment of a perfectly benign sports logo with a snarky reference.
But equipped with an understanding of how #cantunsee works, you can intentionally put it to good use.
For example, you may have formed negative opinions about some people in your life that could be updated by new...
