Our brain is geared towards efficient signal processing, and is actively working to delete signals it deems "unnecessary". It wants us to notice only the new and the unexpected; that's why after a short while you don't notice the same smell or the same recurrent noise. They are just ignored as "already detected / not new".
The reason for this may be evolutionary (although we don't know what traits were the most effective to help us survive in the wild); but there is a very practical reason to ignore signals, which is that there's so may of them: if we did process every data sent from every sensor and thought about odors, light, temperature, noise, etc. then we would be overwhelmed and could not do anything else.
That's also why we usually don't "see" things or people: we identify them. We don't see faces, we simply identify Alice or Bob. Which in turn explains why most people can't draw: the concept of Alice can't be drawn; to draw Alice we need to actually follow the features of her face. Being an artist means being able to unlearn (or disable) that identification process.
And I think the reason most people don't see bugs is similar: they're not interested, all they want is to get something done. If there's a simple workaround that makes the thing work, then that's good enough; all the rest is irrelevant. This is not bias or benevolence: this is efficiency.
The reason for this may be evolutionary (although we don't know what traits were the most effective to help us survive in the wild); but there is a very practical reason to ignore signals, which is that there's so may of them: if we did process every data sent from every sensor and thought about odors, light, temperature, noise, etc. then we would be overwhelmed and could not do anything else.
That's also why we usually don't "see" things or people: we identify them. We don't see faces, we simply identify Alice or Bob. Which in turn explains why most people can't draw: the concept of Alice can't be drawn; to draw Alice we need to actually follow the features of her face. Being an artist means being able to unlearn (or disable) that identification process.
And I think the reason most people don't see bugs is similar: they're not interested, all they want is to get something done. If there's a simple workaround that makes the thing work, then that's good enough; all the rest is irrelevant. This is not bias or benevolence: this is efficiency.