In 1949, researchers asked a group of students at Ivy League schools to perform a simple task: identify playing cards. There were just two catches. First, these cards were shown very quickly. Second, the researchers were using a deck of four ordinary playing cards and six "trick cards" with odd colors and suits (red spades, black hearts, and the like).

The researchers discovered that it took the students four times longer to identify a "trick card" than a normal card. The students' brains struggled to process something as out-of-the-ordinary as a red six of clubs. Even after they had seen two or three trick cards, it still took extra time for them to identify trick cards.

In many cases, the students tried to "compromise" what they expected to see with what they actually saw. For instance, when they saw a red six of clubs they described it as "the six of clubs illuminated by red light." In other words, the participants often couldn't accept the facts of what they just saw because they didn't expect to see it.

The researchers called their study "The Perception of Incongruity," which simply means that when we encounter something that doesn't fit our worldview, we have a strong tendency to ignore it. Or we tend to compromise to make it fit into our assumptions about how we think the world should work. The researchers noted that even smart people (like Ivy League students) fall prey to the perception of incongruity.

Possible Preaching Angles: Miracles; God, power of; Supernatural; Demonic; Worldview—This study raises an interesting question: Is it possible to be confronted with God's power, the reality of miracles, or the presence of the demonic, and yet we deny it because it doesn't fit our worldview? We refuse to see the miracle because we do not expect to see miracles? We are guilty of the "perception of incongruity" and we have to "compromise" what we see so it fits into our worldview.