Final answer:
The phenomenon where individuals can identify scenes after a brief glance relates to rapid visual perception and cognitive processing in the brain. Sensation and perception work together to allow quick recognition of complex visual stimuli, a skill that has evolved alongside humans' exposure to increasingly visual media.
Step-by-step explanation:
The ability for people to identify scenes after viewing them for only a fraction of a second, such as when flipping through TV channels rapidly, is related to the cognitive phenomena of visual perception and sensory processing. Humans have evolved to process visual stimuli extremely quickly, a skill that allows us to recognize images, scenes, and patterns in very short time frames. This quick recognition can be attributed to complex processes in our visual and cognitive systems that enable what's called rapid scene perception. Furthermore, this capability is linked to the psychological concepts of sensation and perception. Sensation is the process of sensory receptors and the nervous system receiving stimuli from the environment, whereas perception is the process of organizing, interpreting, and consciously experiencing those sensations. Human beings have the cognitive ability to perceive and make sense of visual information efficiently, bypassing sensory adaptation where we become less responsive to unchanging stimuli over time, as seen in the introduction of recognizable brand logos and graphic images within today's media-heavy society.