We see what we expect to see - we hear what we expect to hear

The BPS Research Digest reports on research in which dollar notes were attached to a tree to see what people did - and a significant number of people never noticed them,

It makes me wonder - is there some similarity with the problem of confirmation bias - for instance when we read a text, or listen to someone speaking, the things we tend to notice are the passages which support our views. Whatever sense is operating the inputs are automatically optimised to extract features that are relevant to us at the time.