Our intuition that we richly represent the visual details of our envir
onment is illusory. When viewing a scene, we seem to use detailed repr
esentations of object properties and interobject relations to achieve
a sense of continuity across views. Yet, several recent studies show t
hat human observers fail to detect changes to objects and object prope
rties when localized retinal information signaling a change is masked
or eliminated (e.g., by eye movements). However, these studies changed
arbitrarily chosen objects which may have been outside the focus of a
ttention. We draw on previous research showing the importance of spati
otemporal information for tracking objects by creating short motion pi
ctures in which objects in both arbitrary locations and the very cente
r of attention were changed. Adult observers failed to notice changes
in both cases, even when the sole actor in a scene transformed into an
other person across an instantaneous change in camera angle (or ''cut'
').