gorilla experiment selective attention

The Invisible Gorilla: A Classic Experiment in Perception

The invisible gorilla experiment

A couple of paragraphs above, we gave you the same instructions that Chabris and Simons gave to a group of student volunteers before doing the experiment.

When the participants finished watching the video, they were asked the following questions (answer them as well if you watched the video):

• “Did you notice anything unusual while counting the passes?”
• “Did you notice anything else besides the players?
• “Or did you notice anyone other than the players?”
• “Did you notice a gorilla?”

The last question was the one that surprised the volunteers of the invisible gorilla experiment the most. At least 58% of them. Whenever the experiment has been repeated, the percentage of surprise is more or less the same. Yes, there was a gorilla in the video, but more than half of the people didn’t notice it. Did you see it?

The reactions to what happened

The first time the invisible gorilla experiment was conducted, and all subsequent ones, most of those who participated and didn’t notice the presence of the gorilla were amazed at how clear it all was! It seemed impossible to them that they had overlooked something so obvious.

When they’re asked to watch the video again, they all see the gorilla without a problem. Some think that they’ve been shown two different videos, but, of course, this isn’t the case. This experiment won the Ig Nobel Prize. This is an award given to those scientific activities that “first make you laugh and then make you think”.

Why are so many people blind to such an obvious image in the video? That’s the big question that comes out of this. It’s also striking that so many people refuse to accept that their eyes and perception are deceiving them. They think they’re seeing everything correctly, and yet they haven’t seen something so obvious.

For more than a decade, my colleagues and I have been studying a form of invisibility known as inattentional blindness. In our best-known demonstration, we showed people a video and asked them to count how many times three basketball players wearing white shirts passed a ball. After about 30 seconds, a woman in a gorilla suit sauntered into the scene, faced the camera, thumped her chest and walked away. Half the viewers missed her. In fact, some people looked right at the gorilla and did not see it.

That video was an Internet sensation. So, in 2010, I decided to make a sequel. This time viewers were expecting the gorilla to make an appearance. And it did. But the viewers were so focused on watching for the gorilla that they overlooked other unexpected events, such as the curtain in the background changing color.

How could they miss something right before their eyes? This form of invisibility depends not on the limits of the eye, but on the limits of the mind. We consciously see only a small subset of our visual world, and when our attention is focused on one thing, we fail to notice other, unexpected things around us—including those we might want to see.

Consider, for instance, a famous 1995 incident in which police were in hot pursuit of four suspects driving away from the scene of a shooting. After cornering the suspects, the first police officer on the scene, Michael Cox, chased one of them on foot. Other officers arriving on the scene mistakenly thought Cox was a suspect and beat him. Meanwhile, another officer, Kenny Conley, had taken up pursuit of the same suspect and ran right past the altercation. Conley claimed not to have seen Cox or his assailants, and he was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice.

Conley’s conviction raised an intriguing legal issue: Could an eyewitness actually fail to notice an assault like that one? Last year, psychology professor Christopher Chabris and I decided to put Conley’s alibi to the test. Although we could not simulate a high-speed police pursuit, we could extract the most critical element: Conley’s focus on pursuing a suspect. In our experiment, we asked participants to jog behind an assistant and count the number of times he touched his hat. As they jogged, they ran past a staged fight in which two men appeared to be beating a third. Even in broad daylight, over 40 percent missed the fight. At night, 65 percent missed it. In light of such data, Conley’s statement that he didn’t even see Cox or his assailants was plausible.

Indeed, most of us are unaware of the limits of our attention—and therein lies the real danger. For instance, we may talk on the phone and drive because we are mistakenly convinced that we would notice a sudden event, such as a car stopping short in front of us.

Inattentional blindness does have an upside. Our ability to ignore distractions around us allows us to retain our focus. Just don’t expect your partner to be charitably disposed when your focus on the television renders her or him invisible.

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Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself - and that's a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla , Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology's most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate that our minds don't work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we're actually missing a whole lot. The Invisible Gorilla reveals the numerous ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it's more than a catalog of human failings. In the book, they also explain why people succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. In short, they try to give you a sort of "x-ray vision" into your own mind, with the ultimate goal of helping you notice the invisible gorillas in your own life.

For information about the authors, visit chabris.com and dansimons.com

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That actually explain what's on your next test, the gorilla experiment, from class:.

The gorilla experiment refers to a well-known psychological study demonstrating inattentional blindness, where observers fail to notice an unexpected stimulus (in this case, a person in a gorilla suit) while focused on a specific task. This experiment highlights how attention works and how our cognitive processes can lead to overlooking significant details in our environment when we are concentrating on other things.

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5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

• The gorilla experiment was originally conducted by psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris in 1999 and involved participants watching a video of people passing a basketball.
• Participants were asked to count the number of passes made by players wearing white shirts, leading many to miss the gorilla walking through the scene for about nine seconds.
• Approximately half of the observers failed to notice the gorilla, illustrating how focusing on a task can cause people to miss obvious details.
• The study emphasizes the limitations of human attention and suggests that we cannot consciously process everything we see, especially when under cognitive load.
• The findings from this experiment have implications in various fields, including driving safety, eyewitness testimony, and even marketing strategies.

Review Questions

• The gorilla experiment vividly demonstrates inattentional blindness by showing that people can completely miss an unexpected stimulus while concentrating on a specific task, like counting basketball passes. This reveals that our focus on particular aspects of our environment limits our ability to notice other significant details. The implications are profound, as they highlight how easily individuals can overlook crucial information in everyday situations, leading to potential errors in judgment or decision-making.
• Selective attention plays a critical role in the gorilla experiment, as participants' focus on counting basketball passes caused them to overlook the person in the gorilla suit. This selective focus illustrates how we actively filter out information that seems irrelevant to our current tasks, shaping our perception of reality. As a result, while we may think we are aware of everything happening around us, selective attention often limits our awareness to only what we deem important at that moment.
• Inattentional blindness has significant societal implications as highlighted by the gorilla experiment. In high-stakes situations like driving or medical emergencies, individuals may miss critical details due to their focused tasks. This can lead to accidents or misdiagnoses when important cues are ignored. Understanding this phenomenon helps us develop better training and awareness programs that encourage vigilance and enhance safety, showing that raising awareness about our cognitive limitations is essential for improving outcomes in various fields.

Related terms

Inattentional Blindness : A psychological phenomenon where an individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus in their visual field when focused on a primary task.

Selective Attention : The process of focusing on specific stimuli while ignoring others, which is essential for managing information overload in our environment.

Cognitive Load : The total amount of mental effort being used in the working memory, which can affect one's ability to notice new information or changes in their surroundings.

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Attention’s Blind Spot: The Impact of the Invisible Gorilla Experiment by Chabris and Simons

By jackson hartley, this article is divided into the following sections:.

The Invisible Gorilla Experiment, conducted by psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in 1999, fundamentally altered our understanding of attention and perception. This pioneering research explored how focused attention can cause individuals to overlook unexpected events in their environment.

By examining the methodology, findings, and implications of the Invisible Gorilla Experiment, we can gain crucial insights into the limitations of human perception, cognitive psychology, and real-world applications.

Methodology and Design

Chabris and Simons designed the Invisible Gorilla Experiment to investigate the phenomenon known as “inattentional blindness,” where individuals fail to notice unexpected stimuli when their attention is directed elsewhere. The study involved participants watching a short video in which two teams—one dressed in white and the other in black—passed a basketball among themselves. Participants were instructed to count the number of passes made by the team in white, thereby focusing their attention on this specific task.

During the video, a person in a gorilla suit walked into the middle of the scene, thumped their chest, and then exited after a few seconds. The unexpected appearance of the “invisible gorilla” was intended to test whether participants would notice it while concentrating on counting the basketball passes.

This experimental design allowed Chabris and Simons to measure the extent to which focused attention impacts the perception of unexpected events, providing empirical data on inattentional blindness.

Key Findings

The results of the Invisible Gorilla Experiment were both revealing and transformative for cognitive psychology. Chabris and Simons found that approximately half of the participants failed to notice the gorilla despite its conspicuous presence. These findings highlighted the significant limitations of human attention and the ease with which individuals can overlook even highly salient stimuli when focused on a specific task.

These results underscored the concept of inattentional blindness, demonstrating that focused attention can create a cognitive tunnel vision where unexpected elements in the environment go unnoticed. The research challenged the assumption that humans have a comprehensive awareness of their surroundings and revealed the selective nature of attention.

The Invisible Gorilla Experiment provided compelling evidence that our perceptual system is not as infallible as we might believe. It emphasized the importance of understanding the limitations of attention and perception, particularly in situations requiring heightened awareness and vigilance.

Psychological Mechanisms and Implications

The Invisible Gorilla Experiment illuminated several psychological mechanisms underlying inattentional blindness and selective attention. One key factor is the role of cognitive load, where the mental effort required to perform a task can limit the capacity to process additional information. When individuals focus intently on a specific task, their cognitive resources are allocated primarily to that task, reducing their ability to perceive other stimuli.

Another important mechanism is the concept of expectations and mental schemas, which shape what individuals pay attention to and what they ignore. In the case of the Invisible Gorilla Experiment, participants’ expectation to count basketball passes created a mental schema that filtered out irrelevant information, including the unexpected appearance of the gorilla.

These insights have profound implications for understanding the limitations of human perception and cognition. The findings emphasize the need for awareness of inattentional blindness in various contexts, from daily activities to high-stakes environments like driving and security monitoring. They also highlight the importance of designing systems and protocols that account for these perceptual limitations to enhance safety and performance.

Ethical Considerations

While the Invisible Gorilla Experiment provided valuable insights into attention and perception, it also raised ethical considerations related to the potential psychological impact on participants. The experiment involved deceiving participants about the true nature of the study, raising questions about the potential distress or discomfort caused by realizing their oversight.

Modern ethical standards prioritize minimizing harm and ensuring the welfare of research participants. Researchers must obtain informed consent, provide thorough debriefing, and ensure that any induced behaviors do not have adverse long-term effects. The ethical considerations surrounding the Invisible Gorilla Experiment have contributed to the development of stricter guidelines to protect participants while advancing scientific knowledge.

Broader Societal Impact

The insights gained from the Invisible Gorilla Experiment have significant implications for various fields, including psychology, education, workplace safety, and public policy. Understanding the limitations of attention can inform strategies to improve awareness, reduce errors, and enhance performance in different settings.

In psychology, recognizing the phenomenon of inattentional blindness underscores the need for further research on the factors influencing attention and perception. Psychologists can use this knowledge to develop interventions and training programs that help individuals improve their attentional skills and reduce the likelihood of overlooking critical information.

In education, the findings highlight the importance of teaching methods that take into account the limitations of attention. Educators can create learning environments that minimize cognitive overload and promote effective attention management, enhancing students’ ability to absorb and retain information.

In workplace safety, the insights from the Invisible Gorilla Experiment emphasize the need for protocols and systems that account for inattentional blindness. Employers can use this knowledge to design work environments and procedures that reduce the risk of accidents and errors, fostering a safer and more productive workplace.

In public policy, understanding the limitations of human perception can inform the development of regulations and guidelines that enhance safety and effectiveness in various sectors, from transportation to healthcare. Policymakers can use this knowledge to create policies that mitigate the impact of inattentional blindness and promote greater awareness and vigilance.

Theoretical Contributions

The Invisible Gorilla Experiment has made significant contributions to psychological theories, particularly in understanding attention and perception. It provided empirical support for the concept of inattentional blindness and highlighted the impact of focused attention on the ability to perceive unexpected stimuli.

The research also contributed to the broader discourse on cognitive psychology, emphasizing the importance of considering the limitations of human perception in theoretical frameworks and practical applications. By elucidating the mechanisms underlying inattentional blindness, the Invisible Gorilla Experiment has informed research on attention, perception, and the reliability of human observation.

The Invisible Gorilla Experiment conducted by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons remains a cornerstone in the study of attention and perception. Through innovative design and rigorous methodology, the experiment revealed the significant limitations of human attention and the phenomenon of inattentional blindness, challenging the traditional view of perception as all-encompassing.

As we reflect on the legacy of the Invisible Gorilla Experiment, its lessons continue to resonate in various fields, from psychology to education to workplace safety. The research highlights the importance of understanding the limitations of attention and designing systems and protocols that account for these perceptual constraints. It underscores the significance of thoughtful and ethical approaches to studying and addressing the complexities of human cognition.

The enduring relevance of the Invisible Gorilla Experiment attests to its significance in the ever-evolving field of psychology. Its contributions to our understanding of attention and perception provide valuable guidance for creating conditions that promote greater awareness and reduce the impact of inattentional blindness. Ultimately, the Invisible Gorilla Experiment serves as a powerful reminder of the intricate interplay between attention, perception, and human experience.

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The (Really Scary) Invisible Gorilla

• Selective Attention

The Invisible Gorilla is part of the popular culture nowadays, thanks largely to a widely-read 2010 book of that title. In that book, authors and cognitive psychologists Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris popularized a phenomenon of human perception—known in the jargon as “inattentional blindness”—which they had demonstrated in a study some years before. In the best known version of the experiment, volunteers were told to keep track of how many times some basketball players tossed a basketball. While they did this, someone in a gorilla suit walked across the basketball court, in plain view, yet many of the volunteers failed even to notice the beast.

What the invisible gorilla study shows is that, if we are paying very close attention to one thing, we often fail to notice other things in our field of vision—even very obvious things. We all love these quirks of human perception. It’s entertaining to know that our senses can play tricks on us. And that’s no doubt the extent of most people’s familiarity with this psychological phenomenon. But what if this perceptual quirk has serious implications—even life-threatening implications?

A new study raises that disturbing possibility. Three psychological scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston—Trafton Drew, Melissa Vo and Jeremy Wolfe—wondered if expert observers are also subject to this perceptual blindness. The subjects in the classic study were “naïve”—untrained in any particular domain of expertise and performing a task nobody does in real life. But what about highly trained professionals who make their living doing specialized kinds of observations? The scientists set out to explore this, and in an area of great importance to many people—cancer diagnosis.

Radiologists are physicians with special advanced training in reading various pictures of the body—not just the one-shot X-rays of the past but complex MRI, CT and PET scans as well. In looking for signs of lung cancer, for example, radiologists examine hundreds of ultra-thin CT images of a single patient’s lungs, looking for tiny white nodules that warn of cancer. It’s these expert observers that the Brigham and Women’s scientists chose to study.

They recruited 24 experienced and credentialed radiologists—and a comparable group of naïve volunteers. They tracked their eye movements as they examined five patients’ CT scans, each made up of hundreds of images of lung tissue. Each case had about ten nodules hiding somewhere in the scans, and the radiologists were instructed to click on these nodules with a mouse. On the final case, the scientists inserted a tiny image of a gorilla (an homage to the original work) into the lung. They wanted to see if the radiologists, focused on the telltale nodules, would be blind to the easily detectable and highly anomalous gorilla.

The gorilla was miniscule, but huge compared to the nodules. It was about the size of a box of matches—or 48 times the size of a typical nodule. It faded in and out—becoming more, then less opaque—over a sequence of five images.  There was no mistaking the gorilla: If someone pointed it out on the lung scan and asked, What is that? – everyone would answer: That’s a gorilla.

After they were done scrolling through the images as much as they wanted, the scientists asked them: Did that last trial seem any different? Did you notice anything unusual on the final trial? And finally: Did you see a gorilla on the final trial? Twenty of the 24 radiologists failed to see the gorilla, despite scrolling past it more than four times on average. And this was not because it was difficult to see: When shown the image again after the experiment, all of them saw the gorilla. What’s more, the eye-tracking data showed clearly that most of those who did not see the gorilla did in fact look right at it.

To their credit, the trained radiologists did detect the anomaly more often than the naïve volunteers. Indeed, none of the untrained volunteers reported seeing the gorilla, so it does seem that experts are somewhat less prone to this form of blindness. It’s probably because their full attentional capacity is not consumed by the primary task, which they are accustomed to.  Reassuringly, the experts were also much better at spotting the warning signs of lung cancer.

This is not meant as an indictment of radiologists, the scientists emphasize in an article to appear in the journal Psychological Science . This particular kind of visual search is notoriously difficult. But there is no way around the main finding, which is that 83 percent of these highly trained physicians missed what might have been a life-threatening anomaly. For anyone relying on radiological diagnosis of a serious disease, it’s small comfort that the experts outperformed the average man on the street.

Wray Herbert’s blogs—“We’re Only Human” and “Full Frontal Psychology”—appear regularly in The Huffington Post .

Since when is an intra-thoracic gorilla a “life-threatening” anomaly?

I have to disagree with this interpretation of the results of the study. Particularly, I don’t think this study reflects anything about the ability of radiologists to detect unexpected pathology on lung CT scans. To claim this as “scary” implies that this experiment is reflective of actual clinical practice. Here the radiologists have a single task, where in clinical practice they have a multiobjective task, which they typically approach in several stages. For example, they separately evaluate the lungs, soft tissues, and bones. The authors have intentionally made the artifact low contrast with respect to its surroundings and, as a result, have made it as similar as possible to non-significant lung abnormalities (emphysematous bulla). If you stand a few feet from the image, it is actually somewhat difficult to see the artifact. Additionally, the “fade in” will make the artifact more difficult to detect. So they have added detection and interpretation challenges to the inattention problem. In the well known gorilla experiment, the gorilla is quite conspicuous, even when the video is viewed from a distance. Indeed, the gorilla is equally or more conspicuous than the assigned task. If you put a white gorilla in the lungs, I suspect the detection rate would increase dramatically, especially among radiologists. Even putting it on a single slice, instead of fading in, or embeding a 3D model, would probably result in significantly better detection. Real objects change size and position on consecutive slices, contributing to their detectability. I suspect that the authors couldn’t really convince themselves of the invisible gorilla result, and so made the detection task more challenging than the lung nodule detection task. It would be more interesting to see the difference between naive and trained readers in detecting a white 3D computer model of a gorilla embeded in the CT scan.

A “gorilla” is not a normal or abnormal finding on brain imaging. Your research should have looked at how many of the trained radiologists missed an aneurysm, a tumor or any other anomaly that they are trained to find on imaging. I wouldn’t care if they missed a “gorilla” but did spot a tumor/aneurysm correctly!

Yeah, if I was one of the radiologists, I might have seen the gorilla, identified it as an artifact that has nothing to do with the thing I was searching for, dismissed it as an irrelevant distraction (similar to how one would dismiss a watermark, a scratch on the display, etc), and then forgotten all about it.

It seems like it also misses how the visual search process works. I’m allergic to palm oil, coconut oil, and a few other things. I’ve been checking ingredients lists for it for years. I do not actually read and process full list of ingredients each time; I’m simply accustomed to recognizing the shape and typical locations of the words I’m looking for. I also have ADHD, so when I’m trying to focus, I’m constantly compensating for irrelevant distractions by making extra effort to stick to the original task. I could easily fail to notice rather ‘conspicuous’ items on an ingredients list because I’m simply not reading them, despite my eyes scanning over them.

The experiment seems fine, but the bit about the results being “scary” is pretty dubious.

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The ‘Selective Attention Test’ 17 Years Later, And What It Still Means For Humans

The experiment video, from 1999, is here:

One of the creators of that experiment and video, Christopher F. Chabris, wrote a book about it , and in the clip below, he talks about how it came to be:

Think it’s just something to make you go, “Hmmm”?

As he says beginning at around 3:30, it has implications for things like driving while talking on a cell phone, security screeners at airports, lifeguards on duty, and more. 

Even scarier implications, actually — e specially in this age of drivers with tablets or phones showing video clips and headlines and images of presidential candidates comparing the size of their junk. Yes, I’m talking about using Facebook while driving. 

But it goes far beyond that.

Like distracted Daddy-ing . 

More from Christopher Chabris . 

'Invisible Gorilla' Test Shows How Little We Notice

A dumbfounding study roughly a decade ago that many now find hard to believe revealed that if people are asked to focus on a video of other people passing basketballs, about half of watchers missed a person in a gorilla suit walking in and out of the scene thumping its chest.

Now research delving further into this effect shows that people who know that such a surprising event is likely to occur are no better at noticing other unforeseen events — and may even be worse at noticing them — than others who aren't expecting the unexpected.

The so-called "invisible gorilla" test had volunteers watching a video where two groups of people — some dressed in white, some in black — are passing basketballs around. The volunteers were asked to count the passes among players dressed in white while ignoring the passes of those in black. (To watch the video for yourself, click here .)

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These confounding findings from cognitive psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris detailed in a 1999 study revealed how people can focus so hard on something that they become blind to the unexpected, even when staring right at it. When one develops "inattentional blindness," as this effect is called, it becomes easy to miss details when one is not looking out for them.

"Although people do still try to rationalize why they missed the gorilla, it's hard to explain such a failure of awareness without confronting the possibility that we are aware of far less of our world than we think," Simons told LiveScience.

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Gorilla infamy

Of course, these results are utterly counterintuitive, with 90 percent of people now predicting that they would notice the gorilla in the video. The problem is that this video has become so famous that many people know to look for a gorilla when asked to count basketball passes.

In new research, Simons decided to use the infamy of the invisible gorilla to his advantage, creating a similar video that asked for the same results from the audience.

"I thought it would be fun to see if I could monkey with people's intuitions again using almost the same task," Simons said.

(Stop now! Before reading further, try his test out here .)

The idea with this new video was to see if those who knew about the invisible gorilla beforehand would be more or less likely to notice other unexpected events in the same video.

"You can make two competing predictions," Simons said. "Knowing about the invisible gorilla might increase your chances of noticing other unexpected events because you know that the task tests whether people spot unexpected events. You might look for other events because you know that the experimenter is up to something." Alternatively, "knowing about the gorilla might lead viewers to look for gorillas exclusively, and when they find one, they might fail to notice anything else out of the ordinary."

Expecting the unexpected

Of the 41 volunteers Simon tested who had never seen or heard about the old video, a little less than half missed the gorilla in the new video, much like what happened in the old experiments. The 23 volunteers he tested who knew about the original gorilla video all spotted the fake ape in the new experiment.

However, knowing about the gorilla beforehand did not improve their chances of detecting other unexpected events. Only 17 percent of those who were familiar with the old video noticed one or both of the other unexpected events in the new video. In comparison, 29 percent of those who knew nothing of the old video spotted one of the other unexpected events in the new video.

"This demonstration is much like a good magic trick in which a magician repeatedly makes a ball disappear," Simons said. "A magician can lead the audience to think he's going to make the ball disappear with one method, and while people watch for that technique, he uses a different one. In both cases, the effect capitalizes on what people expect to see, and both demonstrate that we often miss what we don't expect to see."

"A lot of people seem to take the message of our original gorilla study to be that people don't pay enough attention to what is happening around them, and that by paying more attention and 'expecting the unexpected,' we will be able to notice anything important," he added. "The new experiment shows that even when people know that they are doing a task in which an unexpected thing might happen, that doesn't suddenly help them notice other unexpected things."

Once people find the first thing they're looking for, "they often don't notice other things," Simons said. "Our intuitions about what we will and won't notice are often mistaken."

Simons detailed his new findings online July 12 in the journal i-Perception.

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Why Even Radiologists Can Miss A Gorilla Hiding In Plain Sight

Alix Spiegel

Notice anything unusual about this lung scan? Harvard researchers found that 83 percent of radiologists didn't notice the gorilla in the top right portion of this image. Trafton Drew and Jeremy Wolfe hide caption

Notice anything unusual about this lung scan? Harvard researchers found that 83 percent of radiologists didn't notice the gorilla in the top right portion of this image.

This story begins with a group of people who are expert at looking: the professional searchers known as radiologists.

"If you watch radiologists do what they do, [you're] absolutely convinced that they are like superhuman," says Trafton Drew , an attention researcher at Harvard Medical School.

About three years ago, Drew started visiting the dark, cavelike "reading rooms" where radiologists do their work. For hours he would stand watching them, in awe that they could so easily see in the images before them things that to Drew were simply invisible.

"These tiny little nodules that I can't even see when people point to them — they're just in a different world when it comes to finding this very, very hard-to-find thing," Drew says.

In the Invisible Gorilla study, subjects have to count how many times the people in white shirts pass the basketball. By focusing their attention on the ball, they tend to not notice when a guy in a gorilla suit shows up.

But radiologists still sometimes fail to see important things, and Drew wanted to understand more. Because of his line of work, he was naturally familiar with one of the most famous studies in the field of attention research, the Invisible Gorilla study .

In that groundbreaking study, research subjects are shown a video of two teams of kids — one team wears white; the other wears black — passing two basketballs back and forth between players as they dodge and weave around each other. Before it begins, viewers are told their responsibility is to do one thing and one thing only: count how many times the players wearing white pass the ball to each other.

This task isn't easy. Because the players are constantly moving around, viewers really have to concentrate to count the throws.

Then, about a half-minute into the video, a large man in a gorilla suit walks on screen, directly to the middle of the circle of kids. He stops momentarily in the center of the circle, looks straight ahead, beats his chest, and then casually strolls off the screen.

The kids keep playing, and then the video ends and a series of questions appear, including: "Did you see the gorilla?"

"Sounds ridiculous, right?" says Drew. "There's a gorilla on the screen — of course you're going to see it! But 50 percent of people miss the gorilla."

This is because when you ask someone to perform a challenging task, without realizing it, their attention narrows and blocks out other things. So, often, they literally can't see even a huge, hairy gorilla that appears directly in front of them.

That effect is called "inattentional blindness" — which brings us back to the expert lookers, the radiologists.

Drew wondered if somehow being so well-trained in searching would make them immune to missing large, hairy gorillas. "You might expect that because they're experts, they would notice if something unusual was there," he says.

He took a picture of a man in a gorilla suit shaking his fist, and he superimposed that image on a series of slides that radiologists typically look at when they're searching for cancer. He then asked a bunch of radiologists to review the slides of lungs for cancerous nodules. He wanted to see if they would notice a gorilla the size of a matchbook glaring angrily at them from inside the slide.

But they didn't: 83 percent of the radiologists missed it, Drew says.

This wasn't because the eyes of the radiologists didn't happen to fall on the large, angry gorilla. Instead, the problem was in the way their brains had framed what they were doing. They were looking for cancer nodules, not gorillas. "They look right at it, but because they're not looking for a gorilla, they don't see that it's a gorilla," Drew says.

In other words, what we're thinking about — what we're focused on — filters the world around us so aggressively that it literally shapes what we see. So, Drew says, we need to think carefully about the instructions we give to professional searchers like radiologists or people looking for terrorist activity, because what we tell them to look for will in part determine what they see and don't see.

Drew and his co-author Jeremy Wolfe are doing more studies, looking at how to help radiologists see both visually and cognitively the things that hide, sometimes in plain sight.

• radiologists

Christos Vachtsiavanos

• Human Behavior

The Invisible Gorilla experiment: What are the limits of our attention?

• May 7, 2023
• By Christos Vachtsiavanos

The Invisible Gorilla experiment is a well-known psychological study from 1999, and highlights our cognitive biases and the limitations of our attention.

This now-classic research project has shown that selective attention has implications for various aspects of our lives, from decision-making to personal safety.

In the next 4 minutes, you will explore the Invisible Gorilla experiment, the phenomena of selective attention and inattentional blindness, and examples of inattentional blindness in real-life scenarios.

Also, I will mention the consequences of inattentional blindness and hopefully provide helpful ways to deal with its effects.

The Invisible Gorilla experiment

In the late 1990s, psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris conducted an experiment in which they instructed participants to watch a video of two groups of people passing a basketball.

Participants were instructed to count the number of passes made by one team while ignoring the other team’s passes. An easy task that requires some amount of focus.

However, the video included a small surprise.

While the people were throwing the ball at one another, a person wearing a gorilla suit walked through the scene, stopped in the middle, pounded their chest, and then walked off.

That’s too crazy to be ignored, right?

Well, the researchers found that despite the gorilla’s prominent appearance in the video, around 50% of the participants did not notice it.

This phenomenon is known as inattentional blindness and occurs when an individual is so focused on a particular task or stimulus that they overlook other unexpected stimuli in their environment.

That was the Invisible Gorilla experiment, which is now considered a classic one in the field of human behavior.

Selective attention: What does the Invisible Gorilla experiment teach us?

The Invisible Gorilla experiment teaches us that human attention is selective and limited.

We cannot process all the information presented to us at once, so we must selectively attend to specific stimuli while filtering out others. That allows us to focus on essential tasks but can also cause us to overlook unexpected or potentially critical events.

Inattentional blindness is not a sign of incompetence or lack of intelligence. It instead highlights the inherent limitations of human attention.

Understanding this phenomenon can help us become more aware of our cognitive blind spots and develop solutions to mitigate their harmful effects.

The police pursuit example

One real-life example that illustrates the consequences of selective attention and inattentional blindness is a 1995 police pursuit incident.

During a high-speed chase, police officer Michael Cox chased a suspect on foot while other officers arrived at the scene. The arriving officers mistakenly believed Cox was a suspect and began assaulting him.

At the same time, another officer, Kenny Conley, continued pursuing the same suspect on foot and ran past the altercation without noticing it.

Conley was later convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, as he claimed not to have seen the assault.

Researchers Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons conducted a study to test the plausibility of Conley’s claim.

During their experiment, participants jogged behind an assistant, counting the number of times the assistant touched their hat.

While jogging, the participants passed a staged fight.

The results showed that more than 40% of the participants missed the fight in broad daylight, and 65% missed it at night.

This experiment showcased that Conley’s claim was plausible, proving the powerful effects of inattentional blindness.

The radiologist experiment

Another example that highlights the implications of the Invisible Gorilla experiment in professional contexts involved radiologists.

In a study conducted by psychological scientists Trafton Drew, Melissa Vo, and Jeremy Wolfe, 24 experienced radiologists were asked to examine CT scans of patients’ lungs, searching for nodules that could indicate lung cancer.

However, in a set of scans, the researchers inserted a small image of a gorilla into the lung scan.

Despite the gorilla being 48 times larger than a typical nodule, 83% of the radiologists failed to notice the gorilla while focusing on identifying the cancerous nodules.

This study shows that even highly trained professionals are susceptible to inattentional blindness when their attention is focused on a specific task.

How can inattentional blindness hurt us?

Selective attention can significantly help us when we need to focus on a specific task for a given period, but leading to inattentional blindness can also hurt us in different ways:

• Decision-making:  Focusing on a single aspect of a complex decision can lead to neglecting other essential factors, resulting in mediocre outcomes.
• Work performance : Selective attention can cause critical mistakes in tasks that require different skills to deal with a specific problem.
• Personal safety:  In high-stress situations or while multitasking, we may overlook potential hazards, increasing the risk of accidents or injury.
• Interpersonal relationships:  Selective attention can prevent us from understanding others’ perspectives or empathizing with their emotions, leading to miscommunication and conflict.

7 ways to deal with inattentional blindness

Selective attention is a natural cognitive process, but we need to find ways to mitigate the potential negative consequences of its by-product, inattentional blindness.

Here are 7 ways to deal with inattentional blindness:

1. Increasing awareness

Recognize that your attention has limitations and that you may miss things even when you believe you are paying close attention.

2. Practicing mindfulness

By trying out mindfulness exercises, you can better understand what your mind is focused on and, in that way, enhance focus and self-awareness in the long term.

3. Breaking tasks into smaller parts

By dividing tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces, you can allocate attention more effectively and, as a result, reduce the chances of overlooking critical details.

4. Taking breaks

Taking breaks is equally important as doing focused work. Regular breaks can prevent mental fatigue, which can exacerbate inattentional blindness.

5. Collaborating with others

We all have flaws and different qualities as human beings. That’s why working in teams can help compensate for individual attentional limitations; different perspectives increase the likelihood of identifying critical information.

6. Limiting distractions

Create an environment that minimizes external distractions, allowing you to focus more effectively on the task at hand.

7. Prioritizing tasks

Rank tasks by importance and allocate your attention accordingly to ensure you address the most critical aspects first.

The Invisible Gorilla experiment is a reminder of the limitations of our attention as human beings.

By understanding how selective attention and inattentional blindness work, we can become more aware of our cognitive biases and work to counteract any possible adverse outcomes.

Also, if we can find ways to enhance our focus while addressing the effects of inattentional blindness, we can enjoy better decision-making, improved work performance, increased personal safety, and more effective interpersonal communication .

The ultimate purpose is to acknowledge, on the one hand, the limits of our attention and, on the other hand, to address them whenever possible.

In that way, we can navigate the complexities of the modern world more effectively and purposefully.

If you want to receive more posts like this to your inbox every week, subscribe to my newsletter below for free.

Let’s connect on LinkedIn: Christos Vachtsiavanos | LinkedIn

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the invisible gorilla experiment, and what does it reveal about human attention.

The Invisible Gorilla experiment, conducted by psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, demonstrates the concept of inattentional blindness, where people can miss obvious things in their visual field when their attention is focused elsewhere. This experiment reveals that human attention is selective and has its limitations, showing that we cannot process all the information in our environment simultaneously.

How does selective attention impact our daily lives?

Selective attention impacts our daily lives by allowing us to focus on specific tasks or stimuli, filtering out irrelevant information. While this helps us concentrate and perform tasks efficiently, it can also lead us to overlook important or unexpected events, affecting decision-making, work performance, personal safety, and interpersonal relationships.

Can inattentional blindness be considered a flaw in human cognition?

Inattentional blindness is not necessarily a flaw in human cognition but rather a byproduct of the way our attention mechanisms are designed. It highlights the inherent limitations of our attentional focus, showing that while we can concentrate on certain aspects of our environment, this concentration can cause us to miss other, potentially significant information.

How can inattentional blindness affect professional performance?

Inattentional blindness can affect professional performance by leading to critical mistakes, especially in tasks requiring comprehensive attention to detail. For instance, healthcare professionals may overlook anomalies in diagnostic images, or law enforcement officers might miss crucial evidence during investigations, demonstrating the need for strategies to mitigate these effects.

What strategies can help mitigate the effects of inattentional blindness?

Strategies to mitigate inattentional blindness include increasing awareness of attentional limitations, practicing mindfulness to enhance focus, breaking tasks into smaller parts, taking regular breaks to prevent mental fatigue, collaborating with others to benefit from diverse perspectives, limiting distractions, and prioritizing tasks to allocate attention effectively.

Why is understanding the Invisible Gorilla experiment important?

Understanding the Invisible Gorilla experiment is important because it sheds light on the selective nature of human attention and the phenomenon of inattentional blindness. By recognizing these aspects of human cognition, we can develop better strategies for managing our attention, improving our decision-making processes, enhancing work performance, ensuring personal safety, and fostering more effective communication in interpersonal relationships.

What role does mindfulness play in combating inattentional blindness?

Mindfulness plays a significant role in combating inattentional blindness by increasing self-awareness and the ability to notice present-moment experiences without judgment. By practicing mindfulness, individuals can improve their focus, become more aware of their surroundings, and potentially reduce the instances of missing important stimuli due to focused attention elsewhere.

How can teamwork help in reducing the effects of inattentional blindness?

Teamwork can help reduce the effects of inattentional blindness by bringing together diverse perspectives and compensating for individual attentional limitations. Working in a team allows for multiple sets of eyes and ears to observe different aspects of a situation, increasing the likelihood of identifying critical information that might be missed by an individual working alone.

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Revisiting the Invisible Gorilla: Fast-Moving Unexpected Objects Capture Attention

Summary: A study challenges the long-held belief that our ability to spot unexpected objects is compromised when focused on a separate task. The team showed that individuals are surprisingly good at noticing fast-moving objects entering their field of vision, even when concentrating elsewhere.

This research, exploring the phenomenon of ‘inattentional blindness’, suggests that we are less capable of spotting slowly moving unexpected objects. The findings may carry evolutionary implications, hinting at a ‘sentinel’ system that alerts us to potential fast-moving threats.

• Researchers demonstrated that people can notice unexpected fast-moving objects, challenging the widely accepted concept of inattentional blindness.
• Participants were less likely to notice slowly moving unexpected objects, confirming aspects of the original inattentional blindness theory.
• The findings suggest the existence of a ‘sentinel’ system, which might have evolved to alert us to potential fast-moving threats.

Source: NYU

We are quite good at spotting unexpected objects while focused on another activity if they are moving fast, reveals a new study by a team of New York University researchers. Their findings cast doubt on a long-standing view that our ability to see the unexpected is necessarily impaired when our attention is already directed elsewhere.

“For decades, it’s been thought that when we’re intently focused on something relevant, like driving or playing a game, we fail to spot something that unexpectedly enters our field of vision, even if it is clearly visible and moving,” says Pascal Wallisch, a clinical associate professor at New York University’s Center for Data Science and Department of Psychology and lead author of the paper, which appears in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

“Our study questions the generality of this view because it shows that people, while focusing on a task, are quite capable of noticing unexpected objects that are moving quickly. However, our research confirms that we are indeed less adept at noticing these same objects when they are moving slowly.”

The research team, who also included Wayne Mackey, Michael Karlovich, and David Heeger, centered its study on “inattentional blindness”—the inability to notice unexpected objects if attention is focused on a task.

This phenomenon was evident in the widely cited 1990s “invisible gorilla experiment.” In that study, the participants—watching a video of students passing basketballs—did not notice an unexpectedly appearing person in a gorilla costume because they were already tasked with, and engaged in, counting the number of passes between players wearing white shirts. 

This and similar studies characterized one of the most striking phenomena in cognitive psychology—inattentional blindness—as an inevitable flip side of task focusing, and essentially a deficit. 

In the  PNAS  study, the NYU research team sought to better understand the nature of inattentional blindness through a series of experiments—and, specifically, whether our cognitive processing was indeed as limited as this previous work suggested. 

They replicated the invisible gorilla experiment using more than 1,500 of research participants—but including several new conditions. In the original 1999 experiment, the gorilla moved slowly as well as upright—like a human (which it was!). 

In the new  PNAS  research, research participants saw the gorilla (yes, also a human dressed in a gorilla costume) in additional ways.

Specifically, the “NYU gorilla” moved at various speeds—in some conditions, just a little faster than the “original gorilla” and, in others, substantially faster than the original gorilla.

During these experiments—just like in the original experiment—research participants were tasked with counting the number of basketball passes made by players wearing black or white shirts.

Overall, the results showed that participants, while engaged in the pass-counting task, were more likely to spot the NYU gorilla if it was moving substantially faster than in the original 1999 experiment  or  if it was leaping instead of walking. 

To ensure these findings generalize beyond spotting gorillas, the researchers then conducted a series of experiments, using approximately 3,000 other participants, that replicated the principles of the invisible gorilla study.

In these, research participants were asked to count how many randomly moving dots of a given color were crossing a central line while an unexpected moving object (UMO) —a triangle— was traversing the screen at various speeds.

As with the gorilla study, the participants were more likely to spot the triangle the faster it was moving. Importantly, the authors note, the same was not observed for triangles that were moving slower than the dots, which is remarkable given that the slower moving triangles are on the screen substantially longer.

This finding also rules out the following: that the noticeability of the fast moving UMOs is simply due to physical dissimilarity to the task-relevant dots. As the authors write in the paper:  

“(O)ur findings…contribute to the ongoing debate on the impact of physical salience on inattentional blindness, suggesting that it is fast speeds specifically, not the physical salience of a feature more generally, that captures attention.”

The findings also might also have evolutionary implications. The classical view of inattentional blindness would leave a task-focused organism vulnerable to unexpected threats.

These new  PNAS  findings, by contrast, suggest that organisms possess a “sentinel” system that constantly monitors the environment. This system alerts organisms to potential threats—specifically, fast-moving attacking predators. 

“Fast-moving, unexpected objects seem to override the task focus of an organism,” says Wallisch. “This will allow it to notice and react to the new potential threat, improving chances of survival.” 

Funding: The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DGE 1342536).

About this neuroscience research news

Author: James Devitt Source: NYU Contact: James Devitt – NYU Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News

Original Research: Closed access. “ The Visible Gorilla: Unexpected fast – but not physically salient – objects are noticeable ” by Pascal Wallisch et al. PNAS

The Visible Gorilla: Unexpected fast – but not physically salient – objects are noticeable

It is widely believed that observers can fail to notice clearly visible unattended objects, even if they are moving.

Here, we created parametric tasks to test this belief and report the results of three high-powered experiments (total n = 4,493) indicating that this effect is strongly modulated by the speed of the unattended object. Specifically, fast—but not slow—objects are readily noticeable, whether they are attended or not.

These results suggest that fast motion serves as a potent exogenous cue that overrides task-focused attention, showing that fast speeds, not long exposure duration or physical salience, strongly diminish inattentional blindness effects.

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Selective Attention Theories (Definition + List)

Our attention seems to be limited by certain things, and cognitive psychologists attempt to explain how our focus works using selective attention theories.

Take a moment to think back to the last time you were at a party. Can you remember every detail? No really. I mean, can you remember every person that was there, everything that was said, the color of the tables, the size of the silverware, the type of flooring that you walked on, all of the smells…?

There are so many stimuli around us at every moment of the day. Even when you are sitting at home on your computer, there are always new sounds to take in or small details that you might not have noticed before.

The brain can’t take in all of the stimuli around you at once. You can’t focus on every sound, sight, smell, taste, and feeling occurring at a particular time. So your brain has to choose which stimuli it will focus on and what it will process.

...but how does that process work?

In this video, we’ll explain the basics of Selective Attention Theory. Psychologists have understood, without experimentation, that we can only pay attention to a limited set of stimuli simultaneously. However, the process of choosing stimuli and what happens to the rest has been up for debate throughout the scientific community over the years.

Colin Cherry (1953)

Colin Cherry noted that no matter how focused you were on one conversation if someone mentioned your name in another... you would be very likely to hear it. He called it the Cocktail Party Effect .

A  Dichotic Listening Task  is when a user listens to two messages in both ears. How, though, can we ensure that the person listening is truly trying to focus on the ear we ask them to?

To continue his research, Cherry devised a method to study attention called  Shadowing, in which listeners listen to two stimuli in each ear through headphones and are asked to say the message they are focusing on outline.  The one they are asked to say aloud is called the "attended message," while the other is the "unattended message."

Why is shadowing important? It proves that the person is paying attention to a certain ear (we can be sure of their "mediational activity").

How much of the information is retained from the unattended message?

In most cases, only physical properties like volume and tonality were noticed. The participants didn't report noticing the change of the message's meaning, the language the message was spoken, the gender of the speaker, or even when the message was reversed. This led psychologists to believe unattended messages are filtered before meaning.

Broadbent's Filter Model (1958)

Donald Broadbent developed the first model for the function of attention. Broadbent theorized that sensory organs took in the information and that the information was then funneled through a "bottleneck" where only a small portion of the overall information reached our working memory.

The "Filter" that Broadbent theorized could focus on specific physical characteristics such as the tone or pitch of a sound. Picture a long glass bottle with the bottom cut out. All input is entered through the large bottom, but the selective filter moves only some information through the small opening at the top. The rest of the information is completely blocked and never understood by the brain. After information passes through this filter, it then passes on to what he called a "Detector."

The Detector processes higher-level parts of information, like meaning.

Once we can understand the meaning of something we focus on, it then gets stored in short-term memory, where it could pass further into long-term memory. Broadbent's Filter model is classified as an "Early-Selection" model since it filters simple characteristics before it processes meaning.

Broadbent did not give his participants instructions to shadow the information that entered their ears, nor did he instruct them to shadow the information.

Moray (1959)

Moray retested some of the dichotic listening tasks that Cherry had created with a more rigorous and academically sound eye. What did he find? More people could recognize words they focused on during the task than the words they "blocked' unless those words were important to the person, like their name.

As you can already tell, The Cocktail Party effect shouldn't have happened if Broadbent's model was completely correct because Broadbent claims meaning is processed last. This is hole #1.

Dear Aunt Jane experiment (1960)

There was a famous experiment performed after Broadbent published his model called the "Dear Aunt Jane" experiment in 1960 (Gray & Wedderburn). Participants were asked to only listen to their left ear. Here's the information that was given to them in each ear:

Left Ear : Dear, 7, Jane

Right Ear : 9, Aunt, 6

Did they hear "Dear 7 Jane" like they were supposed to? No. The participants overwhelmingly reported hearing "Dear Aunt Jane," which shows that sometimes we process meaning before physical characteristics. This is a problem in Broadbent's model. Somehow, we pay more attention to the words than the numbers. This is hole #2.

Treisman's Attenuation Model (1964)

Interestingly, a student of Broadbent, Anne Treisman, continued his work and attempted to fill the holes in his theory. Sometimes psychologists refer to this model as the "leaky filter model" of attention, and similar to Broadbent's, it is classified as an early-selection process.

Treisman said that within the filter of Broadbent's model, there were also two new parts: an "Attenuator" and a "Dictionary unit."

Once information hits the attenuator, it analyzes information based on:

• Physical Characteristics

However, the processing is hierarchical, meaning language and meaning are only used if the physical characteristics are unclear. Treisman theorized that both information that we focus on and information we don't focus on can also pass through if the meaning is important enough. Imagine the attenuator like a volume knob, which can turn up the volume on certain stimuli and down on others.

After the information is passed through the attenuator/filter, it goes into the "Dictionary unit," where every word has a different threshold for being activated. For example, common words like your own name have a low threshold, while "Rutabaga" has a high threshold. Treisman's Dictionary Unity is very similar to Broadbent's Detector.

According to Treisman, if someone says our name in another conversation, we will barely hear it because a small portion of that information is passed through the attenuator. Then, since we realized it was important, we "turned the volume up" and listened for that person's voice again to see if they were talking to us.

Factors like context, recognition, and the importance of the subject all play a role in how far stimuli get in this process. Not all of the input will be processed or moved onto working memory - after all, we only focus on a limited set of stimuli to prevent overwhelming the brain.

The Invisible Gorilla Experiment is great supporting evidence of Treisman's Attenuation Model. We "turn down" the gorilla because it has no meaning to us when we are counting the basketballs.

Deutsch and Deutsch (1963)

In 1963, Deutsch and Deutsch theorized a late-selection model, which supposed that all information is selected for meaning analysis. After analyzing the meaning, the brain picks which parts are relevant and focuses on those.

We also call this the  pertinence model of attention . Deutsch and Deutsch believe you'll process the meaning of the information first; then, you'll decide if it's important. If it is, you'll pick those parts that are relevant and store them in short-term memory.

Norman's Pertinence Model (1969)

Norman took Deutsch and Deutsch's theory and refined it. One of the problems with Deutsh and Deutsch's theory was that unattended information is lost very quickly. Norman theorized that this is probably because short-term memory lasts only seconds without rehearsal. He found participants could remember the last few words of an unattended message if he asked them immediately after.

MacKay's (1973)

Donald MacKay performed some interesting studies on attention, specifically on late-selection models.

First, participants were set up with a dichotic listening task.

In the ear they were supposed to be paying attention to, they heard ambiguous sentences. " They were throwing stones at the bank ." Is it a money bank or a river bank?

In the other ear, they heard "river" or "money." Remember, they were asked to ignore these words.

After they listened to both, they were asked to choose the closest meaning of the message they listened to.

They threw stones toward the side of the river yesterday.

They threw stones at the savings and loan association yesterday.

The results went exactly as you'd expected. Somehow, our brain can grab the meaning of messages we aren't even listening to and try to fit them in with what we hear. This proves that we follow a late-selection model, which means the filter of our attention is after the meaning is processed.

Johnston and Heinz (1978)

Later in 1987, two psychologists proposed a "multimode theory," which viewed attention as flexible and meant that we could filter out irrelevant information at any point. However, we are bottlenecked by our own processing ability, capacity, and effort.

Cowan (2009)

Something important to remember is that in 2009, a study showed that lower working memory capacities result in a worse ability to focus. This is important because it shows attention may be tied to intelligence since working memory and intelligence are also closely correlated.

Reticular Activating System (1949)

This concept dates back long before many selective attention theories, but it's one I want to mention due to its role in focus and attention. In 1949, Morouzzi and Magoun first introduced the idea of the reticular activating system , a bundle of neurons that plays a huge role in sleep, wakefulness, and brain activity. Essentially, the RAS chooses what information we pay attention to and what we ultimately ignore.

Have you ever heard a new word, and suddenly, you're hearing it everywhere? The same goes for a new TV show or concept in psychology. We can blame the Reticular Activating System for picking up on this new word now that you have interacted with it.

Psychologists have studied how the Reticular Activating System influences sleep cycles, but others have questioned how this system can influence how we perceive the world. If we are looking for positive opportunities, might our RAS bring our attention to positive opportunities? If we only look for excuses, are we shown them over opportunities? Might this explain the Cocktail Party Effect? Our minds may be more likely to filter out the noise and bring our name to the forefront of our minds.

There are a lot of theories that explain why we pay attention to certain things and ignore others!

Related posts:

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Reference this article:

About The Author

• Selective Attention Theories
• Invisible Gorilla Experiment
• Cocktail Party Effect
• Stroop Effect
• Multitasking
• Inattentional Blindness

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