RAT you really need to do a visual perception course to see how easy it is for _your_ cognition to deceive you. Aircraft landing on taxiways is not uncommon despite all the green center lines and blue edge lights - and the pilots often high hours professionals, were all
convinced they were landing on the runway. It would be better to work out why these cognitive misperceptions occur rather than question the capability of the crews involved.
Also the idea that suddenly being stimulated is a way to avoid cognitive issues has been shown to be wrong since 1908 in Human Factors research. Two psychologists Yerkes and Dodson developed a theory that has been continually shown to be true since then that both little stimulation and high stimulation can lead to errors in attention, It is often called the inverted U theory as performance is best at a median level of stress/stimulation.
From
Yerkes Dodson Law - AviationKnowledge
When arousal is high the quality of performance is expected to decline with load shedding, and tunnel vision symptomatic of attention narrowing. An experience Wickens and Hollands (2000, p. 484) describe as “stress produced perceptual tunnelling” directly resulting in a reduction in the standard of performance.
(my underline)
There are many more references on inverted U and Yerkes Dodson if you do an internet search. Being at the wrong part of the circadian cycle and fatigue will exacerbate these effects.