Absolutely. Just an obvious example - I used to overlook knight forks in my games all the time. I did a bunch of easy chess puzzles involving knight forks, and now I very rarely overlook them. It's about training your brain to look for certain patterns, in this case knights in a position to attack certain squares. There are tons of other examples, but that's why doing lots and lots of tactical puzzles will help your game - patterns similar to the ones in the puzzles will come up in your own games, and you'll be more likely to notice.
--Fromper
Here is an interesting article about a chess master who states that playing good chess is all about pattern recognition:
http://www.gazetteextra.com/chessmaster100807.asp
What do you think? Does pattern recognition play a big role in good chess?