As kids we played a picture puzzle that you will all remember...the "can you find the hockey stick in this picture". That was fairly easy in that the image (the hockey stick) really was there and simply in the midst of a number of other recognizable objects. The observations posed in the NYTimes piece linked in the title explore this a bit and it is a good read. I'll let you read it or encourage you to do so.
In advertising there is a theory about white space in an ad. The simple truth is that eye/mind doesn’t focus on white spaces and move toward the first identifiable recognizable product. Simply it is somehow reassuring to find something that one can relate to in some way and the brain goes through all sorts of gyrations until it solves the problem or, in an advertising scene, arrives at the message.
As I sit with traders all day long I see this often. Seemingly unrelated materials and events that are really a pattern of sorts fill their screens and therefore mind. A lot of very smart people sitting around trying to find out what is what with what we now know to be their brains lighting up.
If you are intrigued by this you should be a trader...but then you should be a trader anyway.