Everyone has had the experience of searching for a lost or misplaced object only to discover that it had been right in front of you all the time and somehow you did not 'see' it. I don't mean forgetting where you just placed something -short term memory difficulties - but having difficulty in finding something you are looking for when it has been in clear sight all the time. Clearly it's a matter of perception and not of memory. As far as I can tell, we're dealing here with a problem in separating something from its background, of making the lost coffee cup or whatever foreground and everything else background. You pass over it again and again and then -pop- there it is and you, wonder; how could I not have seen it? I wonder too.
Foreground / background is a distinction we clearly learn early in life, a distinction that can become 'rusty' in some situations, especially as we age..And it is a full scale pain in the ass if you need what you are looking for and- here's the bad news- it becomes way more common as you drift into old age. Also, it is one of those things that makes you look old and silly in the eyes of youth, like your mind is beginning its slide into senile decay. Add this to a deteriorating short-term memory and you become the stereotype of the dottering old country cleric in British novels.
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