The Science of Camouflage

Human Perception in the Military

Despite being out of the Air Force for nearly two years now, I still often find myself viewing routine daily events through a military lens. For example, when presented with the word “Resilience” in the Cognitive Map Lab, my thoughts went immediately to POWs. Naturally then, when considering the nature of human perception, I thought of how the camouflage patterns of military uniforms take advantage of the limitations of human perception. 

Can you spot the snipers in these photographs?

In nature, animals use varying camouflaging methods for protection from predators. Typical methods target the specific ways the predators perceive their surroundings. Many predators scan surroundings for movement. This explains why many animals (e.g., deer) freeze when they sense danger. However, other animals camouflage themselves with colors, patterns, or textures to defend themselves against predators that are object-based perceivers, like humans. 

We identify latent characteristics of a given object, and then utilize residual knowledge from past experiences to draw conclusions about what we see. Our minds then fill in missing information to make sense of inconsistencies so that what we see fits our mental model of how the object should appear.

The human brain prioritizes speed over accuracy. A person looking at an entire landscape takes in as much information as quickly as possible. For example, looking at a forest, you see spotted greens, vertical browns, and probably dark spots interspersed. You have seen so many forests in your life that your brain immediately generates a mental image even if you only looked for a split section. It fills in the blanks that you didn’t have a chance to analyze with what it knows should be there: leaves, trees, maybe some animals. So, if there are actually a pair of eyes, some hands, maybe even a foreign, non-natural object (e.g., a firearm), or a slightly different color scheme in a small portion of what you observed than the rest of the forest, your brain does not take the time to notice such anomalies.  Even if you do notice, your brain will most likely disregard the irregularity and justify the inconsistency.

In the past, military uniform (and equipment) patterns were designed with a “one size fits all” mentality, regardless of military branch or deployment location. Now, based upon immense bodies of research data, military uniforms are constantly being updated to best protect soldiers under specific conditions.  In the past, prominent artists who explored human perception in their works, such as even Pablo Picasso in WWII, have been tasked with developing camouflage patterns.  Fast forwarding to today, computer program algorithms produce patterns with specific shapes and angles that take the most advantage of the limitations of human perception. Still, even with the use of such technology, outside factors can sometimes thwart the objective of camouflaged uniforms. In the last five years, US Army uniforms for troops in Afghanistan were changed in response to complaints that the uniforms’ design only addressed the region’s desert character, failing to consider the forested areas or alpine environments.  Some studies even suggested certain patterns actually made troops more observable and more likely targets than if they weren’t wearing any camouflage at all. However, as we continue to explore the science of human mind and its methods of processing information, military camouflage will inevitably continue to evolve and improve in its objective.

So, if you missed the snipers hiding in these photographs, don’t feel bad, you are not alone! You have just fallen victim to the complexities of human perception!