Vanessa Van Edwards ran an experiment where volunteers swapped seats and identities mid-conversation with strangers. Most people didn't notice the switch, even when told they were being recorded. The result shows we overestimate how much we actually observe about the people around us.
This is one of the craziest experiments I've ever done. We wanted to see if people would notice if they were talking to a completely different person. So we had our volunteers switch spots mid-conversation and see if the people who approached the table recognized that they were talking to a new person. And over and over again, people did not notice. Even when I asked them, did you notice the difference? And told them they were being recorded, most people could not believe that the volunteers had switched places. And we're embarrassed because most of us consider ourselves great observers. This experiment is called the switcheroo. Sometimes how observant we think we are is not how observant we actually are.
