What our eyes and ears catch up is not selective, but what we focus our brain on is. Now I've heard of a man who could see everything, and yet he was blind. I remember this man has been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey about this, so perhaps that helps looking it up.
Now I've once asked the employees of De Efteling, if constantly hearing the same music (as at all rides the music loops all the time) didn't drive them crazy. They all said that when you've been helping people getting in and out of the ride, you simply can't hear it anymore at all. It's rather when the music would stop due to a malfunction that you may start to notice. The reason is simple. The looping music ain't interesting for you. What the people getting in and out of the ride have to tell you, can be more important, so you always focus on that.
Now another one. You walk on the street and a woman passes by and says "hello" to you. Just when she's gone I suddenly ask you "What was the color of her dress?" Chance is great that you didn't even see she was wearing a dress in the first place. If she was completely naked though, you'd have seen it, no doubt about it, but as you are so used to see people wearing clothes, you hardly notice unless the clothes look very unusual.
If you are on the motorway, do you actually read all the license plates of other cars? Chance is great that you only notice there are other cars, and very likely only so you can see how to steer your own car and prevent accidents, but not really realizing what you were doing. You notice what is important, the presence of cars. What they look like is not important so your brain won't make notion of that.
