Tell me this isn't amazing ...

I've written before how your brain fills in much of what you perceive, whether it be sound or vision. You're not directly hearing or seeing what's presented to you, your memory is filling in about 40% of what you hear and see. The amount of memory used is dependent on how new the info is to you. It's one of the reasons why blind AB testing does not work. The environment you create for your testing has to be setup in such a way that is safe and familiar, allowing your senses to relax and not feel overwhelmed with new data. When we do blind AB testing with new music in unfamiliar settings, the brain simply gets overwhelmed with and switches to "memory mode" and we hear no differences, because we're listening through our memory, not our ears. When we limit the sample size and are in an environment we feel safe in, or when someone points out an area we should be focusing on, that memory mode is switched off and we hear the actual differences. If you doubt this, read the next sentence and try it yourself. My friend Tim Jerome sent me a link to a perfect example of this. I recommend it highly. Click on this link and then listen to the audio snippet. It's only 50 seconds. Tell me that's not amazing. Thanks Tim!