Tunnel vision (metaphor)

Tunnel vision is a collection of common heuristics and logical fallacies that lead individuals to focus on cues that are consistent with their opinion and filter out cues that are inconsistent with their viewpoint. The phenomenon is a metaphor for the medical condition of the same name (tunnel vision). It is mostly widely observed and researched in the field of criminology due to its prevalence and dangerous potential to create incorrect convictions.

Tunnel vision is related to confirmation bias, the over-reliance on external sources that may be inaccurate yet supports an individual's opinion, whereas tunnel vision is over-reliance on internal information whilst ignoring correct external information.

The common way to solve this problem is a second opinion, that is, getting somebody unrelated to the original investigation to look at it from the beginning, without the same biases and preconceptions. This is generally due to bias from preceding incidents.

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