Selective Perception

One of my favorite activities has always been mind games, whether it was mind puzzles that they would make you solve in elementary school, difficult riddles, or those games you play at camp when it is raining but the camp counselors need to keep you entertained, like "black magic" or "sticks"; they are all so much fun to me. I love the challenge and I love to solve them. They are easy to trick people, but as soon as you recognize that there is a trick you can know that your brain needs to reach beyond the limits they have set for you and find the obvious answer they have cast to the side while telling you to look forward.
I think this ties into my love of false memories, selective perception, and the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. When I first learned about Rosa's Café I thought it sounded good, then I heard someone else mention it and got excited cause I had heard the name and knew what it was. A week later my then boyfriend said "Guess where I am taking you to dinner", I immediately said Rosa's and watched the shock on his face from guessing right with no hints. I had probably heard the name Rosa's before, but since it had no meaning to me it went unheard. My selective perception had discounted it because there was no emotion or information to attach it to. After a friend had mentioned it, I was suddenly able to recognize it because it meant something to me and therefore it was a possibility. When something is emotionally attached we have better memories, or we can create false memories like when my mom tells me about my childhood and I "remember" or when the people with excellent memories "remember" seeing the plane crash in Pennsylvania, even thought no such footage exists.