A deer can see 310 degrees around itself (I believe I said, " can ALMOST see" ).
That' s what whitetail.com says too, and if you picture or measure the trophy mount that' s over your fireplace, you' ll find this pretty accurate. Hold the head still by brcaing the wooden mount against a wall. Now look at how the eyes are set, and consider how far they could articulate/rotate. Draw an inmaginary line from eyeball to the point that it would see on the wall. Do the same for both eyes, and draw similar lines on the wall behind the mount. A full circle would be 360 degrees - and you' ll find that your lines almost cover the whole room.
As far as the new furniture in the living room deal goes, not always the case.
I once, (when I was young and foolish), asked my wife where that " new" picture came from, that one simple question somehow turned into a full-blown " YOU NEVER NOTICE ANYTHING !!!" discussion. (the picture had been there for a few months).
Most of the time if not always, if something doesn' t move and they cannot smell it, they think nothing of it.
There' s no icon for biting my tongue.
If you are not moving, you' re not a threat. I' ve stalked deer in an open field to within 15 yards of them starting at over 100 yards away. They saw me coming the entire way, or at least they looked directly at me. But when they looked up, I froze. Since they have bad depth perception and the wind was with me, they had no idea if I was a tree in the middle of the field or how close I ever was to them. Try it sometime. I' ve even done this to deer while bird hunting - in no camo pattern at all!!
I' m pretty sure that everyone who' s spent their time in the field has walked up on deer at some time or another. But I' ve never been able to WALK that close. (I have crawled this close with an old carpet draped over my back). Not saying you didn' t, but you' re either really good, or the deer were extremely distracted.
Honestly, I gotta think you got some blind deer there BSB, or you had an awesome backdrop to " confuse" your outline. I' ve had deer turn around and come back to me after seeing me walking when I stopped and laid down, crouched, or crawled (not easily done with a ow, but it works great with a pistol), but whenever I' ve been upright - be it standiing still ' cuz I saw them coming, or when I' ve been walking, deer flee (maybe I smell that bad ???)
The better question here is: Do deer have the knowledge and thinking capability to collect data, process it as rational as humans to confirm the human figure? No. They don' t.
They don' t " rationalize" - they don' t have a progressive thought train that steps though an analytical process or nothing, but I believe they can recognize shapes. Call it more of a " conditioned response" . Typically they don' t see an upright, two legged, un-furred, un-barked, topless, branchless critter in their " living room" , and when they do, it makes a loud noise (farming, hiking, gun-hunting) , they smell blood (hunting - even if it' s rabbits), they smell exhaust, or some other non-natural/man-made event.
Move though, and you are now a threat.
Positively, unless you can be dead slow, or stop moving even before they look up.