This section was developed into the recurrent theme of the ‘Gorilla Experiment’ and Inattentive Blindness. Snowden references this extensively (the 17%) as a ‘popularist’ pitch to his audience - you too could have the superpowers of the elite.
Alternatively Dennis Noble in ‘The Data Hypothesis’ dismisses this experiment not as a characteristic of the individual but as a consequence of the framing in which the experiment was conducted. The essence of his thinking is what you observe is dependent on what you expect - memorably captured as ‘every fishing expedition requires a net’ and Bateson’s observation that is you study the marine ecology of the pacific with a 2 inch net all you get are 2 inch species.
This led to a conversation with NotebookLM which generated the following ‘neutral’ prompt to be used with the source data as another QSet (as explained in Formulating the Question)
To what extent is the detection of 'weak signals' (or outliers) a property of individual sensory capability, or an emergent artifact of the 'net'—the specific boundary judgments, task constraints, and 'station points'—chosen by the observer to frame the inquiry?