Everyone seems to know someone like this.They buy a new handkerchief. A few days later, it disappears. Sometimes they leave it at a restaurant. Sometimes it stays in a taxi, an office or a friend's house. Eventually, people around them start saying the same thing. "How do you always lose it?" At first glance, this may seem like simple forgetfulness. But psychology suggests something more complicated may be happening. Humans are not designed to track every object they carry every second of the day. The brain constantly decides which information deserves attention and which information can temporarily move into the background. For some people, small portable objects often lose that competition.
