I think that deer are given way too much credit most of the time. I know of a few deer that look in trees where I hunt and I believe they might have an association with a different smell in the woods and a previous encounter where they saw someone in a tree or got shot at etc. For humans smell is powerful and a whiff of perfume can take you back 20 years to your Prom Date and the fun that happened after Prom, I see this as a possibility with deer as well.
Deer lead a simple life, they are slaves to their stomach and need to eat as much as they can before the weather turns and the rut starts since they loose so much bodyweight during the rut. A deer will feed, walk, feed, walk, bed, walk, feed, walk, bed, walk, feed, walk, feed, walk. They are on a continuing pattern of eating, bedding, and walking the way I see it. If you figure out the times, where they eat, what they eat, and how they get to their areas of food and relaxation then you are good.
I use the same approach to deer hunting that I did when I was a repo man, Figure out where the sucker sleeps, eats, cruises chicks, etc and know the times they are there and bingo, rollin in the 5.0 to the repo yard.