Object Permanence

When I'm working at home, a lot of times I'll put my phone on the other side of the room, or in another room altogether, so I'm not tempted to check it. When I'm working elsewhere (a coffee shop, for instance), I'll put it in my bag. But sometimes I'm too lazy to put it in my bag, and I'll just hide it behind my laptop screen.

This is almost as effective (emphasis on almost), which suggests that on some level of consciousness, object permancene doesn't apply. On some level, I really have forgotten that the phone exists, simply because I can't see it.

There must be a part of our brains that takes everything it sees at face value. If that part of our brain didn't exist, horror movies wouldn't be scary.

But this assumes that horror movies "trick" our brains into thinking something is scary when it really isn't. But can the same be said of comedies? Do comedies "trick" our brains into thinking something is funny, that really isn't?

I'm jotting this down quickly, so offhand all I can say is that I don't think those two effects are products of the same mechanism.