Photo by Siow

If you’ve lost your keys, you might think it’s best to search in the most obvious, open areas before moving on to more cluttered areas. But a recent study suggests our peripheral vision is better than we think, and being so thorough while searching might actually be a waste of time.




The scavenger hunt-style study, led by Anna Nowakowska from the University of Aberdeen, and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, found that people tend to spend a lot of time searching for objects in “easy” areas even though it provides them with no new information. Instead, Nowakowska recommends you start searching for your keys, or whatever it is you’ve lost, in areas where they’d be hard to spot. So don’t check the table, counter, bed, and floor over and over. Focus on areas that have the most clutter, and scan through locations where you peripheral vision wouldn’t be able to pick up the shape of the item so easily. Piles of clothes, messy drawers, and crowded coffee tables are a better use of your time. If your keys we’re somewhere obvious, you would have already found them.


Human visual search behaviour is far from ideal | Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences via Science of Us