Yes. This is an argument for thorough training in a procedural approach. For example, military watch keepers learn to move their eyes in a grid pattern, to avoid exploitation of the eye’s tendency to follow lines and seek out known patterns.
For marine watch keepers, the most important part of the solution is to always correlate different sources of information. See a white light? Don’t just grab the most likely explanation (say, a stern light). Check the chart for land masses and buoys on that bearing. Check Navtex for uncharted buoys. Check radar to see if you can plot an echo. Hit it with a searchlight. Call the mate to the bridge. Etc.
Of course, this process is largely subconscious. A long life at sea has taught you to read the situation so intuitively that you “just see what’s going on”, but it remains a highly interpretative and creative process. In fact, I think there’s a pretty blurred line between identifying a seen object, recollection and higher level interpretation of navigational information.
Interesting things happen when you get tricked by the familiarity of subconscious procedure. There’s one time in particular when I went up the wrong inlet, and managed to make the lights fit the chart way beyond the point it made any kind of sense. Like a child seeing horses in the clouds, I was. Scary…
Of course, there are less traumatic examples of confirmation bias. Like the time I tracked an 80 kt target on a collision course, understanding very little until I heard a low flying aircraft.