Inattentional Blindness

We experience selective attention almost everyday, we may think we are giving something our devoted attention, when in most situations we aren't. An example of this is inattentional blindness, when we are not able to perceive things that are in plain sight. A prime example of this is the famous YouTube video where a group of people are lined up wearing two different color shirts and the viewer is asked to count how many times the team in the white shirt passes the basketball. At the end of the clip the viewer is not only asked to answer, but if they viewed anything odd during the clip. Nearly half of the viewers neglect to notice the gorilla, or moon walking monkey that clearly stood out and made a prominent entrance in the clip. It is astonishing that people can focus so much on something that they fail to notice anything else. This phenomenon is actually quite scary because if they can;t notice a gorilla walking across a screen because they weren't expecting it, then how can they notice a a child running out in the middle of the street? In most cases people only experience inattentional blindness when they are focusing on a scenario where they are so fixed to see an end result, not while behind the wheel when they need to brace themselves for anything.

Most people don't realize but magic tricks are a prime example of how people take advantage of the fact that the average person fails to notice something in plain sight. The classic trick of the disappearing handkerchief is an example. It is so simple to notice once you know the trick, but since the audience is so focused on how and where the disappearing handkerchief is going they fail to notice that the magician is wearing a fake thumb that contains the handkerchief. In the link attached you can watch the trick and then see it reveled. I can guarantee now that you know how the trick works you will notice an obvious fake thumb on the magicians hand. However, when you are unaware of it, you fail to notice it, even though it is in plain sight right in front of your face.

click here to see the magic trick revealed

Inattentional Blindness

Are you guilty of "Inattentional Blindness?" Watch the video below and find out!

DID YOU SEE THE BEAR?

The first time I watched the above video, I never noticed the "moonwalking bear"since my attention was focused on getting the correct number of passes for the team in white. If you also did not notice the "moonwalking bear" then you were guilty of Inattentional Blindness. Inattentional Blindness is defined as "the failure to perceive a stimulus that isn't attended, even if it is in full view."

This video is a re-creation of the researchers Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, "Gorilla Experiment." Simons and Chabris created a seventy-five second film that portrayed two teams, one team dressed in white and the other dressed in black playing basketball. Participants were asked to count the number of passes for a certain team; therefore, a task that focused their attention on the white team only. Conversely, observers were not focusing their attention upon the team in black; and therefore were not able to detect the unusual stimuli in the experiment; in this video the unusual stimuli would be the "moonwalking bear." Simons and Chabris both decided that after forty-five seconds into the basketball game; either a woman carrying an umbrella or a person dressed in a gorilla suit would walk through the "game," an event lasting between three to six seconds.

Simons and Chabris reported that after observers watched the video, 46% of participants failed to report the woman or the gorilla; they stated that they saw nothing unusual happen in the basketball game. In another experiment, Simons and Chabris conducted the same method of study, however, they had the gorilla stop in the middle of action, turn to face the camera, and pound its chest, yet half of the observers STILL failed to report they saw the gorilla!

As a result, these studies have demonstrated and proven that when observers are attending to one sequence of events, they can fail to notice another event, even when it is right in front of them! This could be the reason that we also have so many motor vehicle accidents, because drivers are focusing their attention on texting on their cellphone, applying their makeup, or talking on the phone. Therefore, since the driver failed to focus their attention on the stimuli on the road (walkers, drivers, cyclists) an accident is at a greater risk of happening!

This has made me become more aware and conscious of my surroundings; because I may be missing an important part of the "picture."