This phenomenon seems to manifest in many ways: the streetlight effect in research [1], the way that brains evolve in formative years, and the flower we're forced to see because it is in the spotlight.
In research, especially medical research, in lieu of exact experiments, scientists are forced to rely on what they can readily get and see - proxies for the objective function, simplified models of the exact process, and a sample of the population as opposed to the population itself. Because the conclusion depends on the measurement, this leads to the current landscape of contradictory papers and differing medical recommendations (for examples and more discussion see e.g. [1]).
What about baby brains? By age 3, babies have about three times as many synapses as adults. Synapses help neurons pass messages between target cells, enabling the brain to store and process all the data being absorbed by the body. So babies have the ability to learn a lot of new things really quickly, but eventually a remodeling of the neuronal structure focuses the learning so that only important information is extracted (e.g. [2]). In a sense then, brains are actually being constrained as they evolve. Related is perhaps the claim that alcohol or opiates - which relax these constraints - have led to brilliant discoveries, or at the very least, creative thoughts that look beyond the reach of the streetlight.
And finally comes the spotlight on people... If a performer is on stage and the spotlight is on them, you look at the person in the spotlight and ignore the rest. If a student gets an A+ and is honored for it at a school assembly, they stand out. But perhaps as in the research scenario, the grade is just a proxy and here too there might be another way to look for success.
[1] Streetlight Effect
[2] Babies recognize faces better than adults
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