Your Eyes Aren’t Cameras, and Your Brain Isn’t a Recorder—So Why Do You Trust Them?

How perception, memory, and bias distort reality—and what you can do about it

Do you believe what you see with your own eyes? Do you trust your memory of what you saw? If you answer yes, you might assume that your eyes function like video cameras and your brain like a flawless recording device. Unfortunately, that assumption is far from reality.

The truth is, perception isn’t passive recording—it’s active interpretation. Your brain isn’t a storage device; it’s an editor, a filter, and sometimes, an unreliable narrator.

The Reality of Perception

Unlike a camera, which captures a scene exactly as it is, your eyes and brain construct reality from limited sensory input. To make sense of the world, your brain:

• Fills in gaps using past experiences, expectations, and context.

• Filters out information it deems unnecessary.

• Reconstructs rather than retrieves memories, meaning every recall is a fresh interpretation, not a playback.

This has significant consequences. Here are three key ways your perception fails you:

1. Your Vision Is Not Objective

Your brain processes raw visual data, adds assumptions, and prioritizes specific details while discarding others. Optical illusions and inattentional blindness—like the famous invisible gorilla experiment—prove that perception is shaped by attention and expectation. (If you haven’t seen the experiment, watch it here: The Invisible Gorilla.)

2. Memory Is Not Reliable

Unlike a video file that remains unchanged, memories are reconstructed each time they are accessed—often distorted by emotions, biases, and new information. This is why eyewitness testimony is frequently unreliable.

3. Cognitive Biases Distort Reality

Your brain’s tendency to interpret rather than record means you’re prone to misremembering events, seeing patterns that aren’t there (apophenia), and even creating false memories.

The Psychological Takeaway: You Don’t See Reality—You Perceive It

Your experience of the world isn’t an objective truth; it’s a constructed model shaped by prior knowledge, social influence, and mental shortcuts. This is why two people can witness the same event yet remember it differently.

So, what does this mean for decision-making?

How This Impacts Decision-Making

Since your brain doesn’t record reality objectively, every decision you make is based on a constructed perception—one influenced by biases, emotions, and past experiences. This has profound implications for assessing risks, judging situations, and making choices.

Cognitive Biases Shape Perception

Your brain interprets rather than records, filtering out information contradicting existing beliefs. Common biases include:

• Confirmation Bias – You notice and remember information that supports your views while ignoring opposing evidence.

• Availability Heuristic – You judge an event’s likelihood based on how easily you recall similar instances (e.g., fearing plane crashes because they’re vivid in memory, even though they’re statistically rare).

• Anchoring Bias – Your first piece of information (the “anchor”) disproportionately influences your final decision, even if it’s arbitrary.

False Memories Influence Choices

Because memory is reconstructed rather than retrieved, your recollection of past events may be inaccurate, affecting:

• Risk assessment: If you misremember a past failure as worse than it was, you might miss a good opportunity.

• Negotiations – Two people can recall the exact conversation differently, leading to misaligned expectations and conflicts.

• Investment decisions – A distorted memory of past market trends can lead to overly cautious or reckless behavior.

Emotion Distorts Perception

• Fear, stress, and excitement change what you “see” in a situation, leading to overreactions or underestimations. Emotional memories—especially traumatic ones—reconstruct past events in ways that reinforce the original emotion, making objective risk assessment difficult.

Decisions Are Made Based on What You Expect to See

• If you believe someone is untrustworthy, you’ll unconsciously focus on behaviors that confirm that belief—even if reality says otherwise.

• If you expect a project to fail, you’ll naturally seek evidence of failure instead of success factors.

How to Counteract These Effects

Here are five ways to protect your decision-making from distorted perception:

1. Slow down – Give your rational brain time to challenge first impressions.

2. Seek disconfirming evidence – Look for proof that contradicts your assumptions.

3. Write down past experiences objectively – Don’t rely on memory alone.

4. Use data, not intuition, for big decisions – Emotions and biases often mislead.

5. Consider multiple perspectives – Get input from others before finalizing a choice.

Recognizing that your brain constructs reality—not records it—empowers you to make more deliberate, informed, and rational choices. Then again, you could believe your “lying eyes”—but that might be a story you’re telling yourself.