Focusing effect (focusing illusion)

Biological Parallel

A deer's attention locks onto a snapping twig, making it momentarily blind to other threats—the focused stimulus dominates consciousness out of proportion to actual danger. This attentional spotlight evolved because salient threats often were the most urgent, but it creates distortion: the focused element seems more important than distributed context. The focusing illusion works identically: asking 'how important is climate?' makes climate loom large, not because importance changed, but because attention amplifies whatever it illuminates.