Our brains are wired to notice who’s in the room, not who’s missing

People often never notice the absence of racial or gender minorities in professional or social settings “because of a fundamental cognitive tendency to what is present rather than to what is absent.” The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in a research article headlined “Blindness to minority absence,” says observers were far more likely to notice the presence of a single minority individual rather than a group’s total absence. Researchers note that this cognitive glitch is a “significant social bias” that can distort public perception, making institutions appear more diverse than they actually are.