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Sometimes we don’t face that 800-pound gorilla in the room because we don’t notice him in the first place. This is what researchers Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons proved in an experiment done 10 years ago.
In a video two groups, one group with white tee shirts, the other black, move randomly in a room while passing a basketball. The viewer’s task is to count how many passes the white-shirted members make. Halfway through the video, a woman dressed in a gorilla suit walks through the groups, stops, faces the camera, thumps her chest and walks off. Half of all viewers miss this. I did, and it left me unnerved.
Chabris and Simons have now written a book, "The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us" about all kinds of illusions we suffer from. We think we see things as they really are, but “our vivid visual experience belies a striking mental blindness,” they write.
They cover the illusion of memory, how often our memories are born from our own embellished stories; the illusion of knowledge, we think we know much more than we actually do; the illusion of cause, we quickly assume correlation means causation.
Such overestimations have profound consequences: eyewitnesses sending innocents to prison; believing—wrongly—that vaccines cause autism simply because of a correlation; or thinking we can text while driving. If there’s one thing we ought to take from watching the gorilla film it is that texting while driving is a ticking time bomb.
Perhaps the worst illusion of all, the failing that leads to others, is the illusion of confidence. We profoundly overestimate our ability to see things as they are. As the physicist Richard Feynman famously said: The first principle is you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
—Christie Nicholson
33 Comments
Add CommentThat is what I call Selective Focus - being able to stick to the assigned task at hand while ignoring distractions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course. Being able to focus is essential to many tasks. A good hockey goalie would/should not notice an entire grandstand full of gorillas if the offense is coming his way. So this phenomenon may be scary but it is also an essential ability. The lesson for us is to recognize our limitations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo much for multi-tasking among conscious tasks; there's no such thing. Its an illusion caused by switching among tasks. Certain unconscious tasks can be left in charge of oure lizard-brain while we think about something else. Many people have had the experience af arriving at the office after thinking about some absorbing matter along the way; then having no recollection of how we got there.
I think the point here is unintended and also missed. Was the gorilla missed, or completely dismissed? Anybody got any data on that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think a fake gorilla can be safely dismissed in order to maintain primary focus. Would a wild tiger have been dismissed?
There should be quite a lot limitation of human beings I think,and said gorilla missed, the more we noticed,the better we know ourselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere should be quite a lot limitations of human beings to know the world and themselves, said gorilla missed is a good example, the more limitation we noticed,the better view we would have.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSometimes, it's not bad to ignore something.
"That is what I call Selective Focus - being able to stick to the assigned task at hand while ignoring distractions."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I think a fake gorilla can be safely dismissed in order to maintain primary focus. Would a wild tiger have been dismissed?"
"Sometimes, it's not bad to ignore something."
Isn't it interesting how people rationalize their faults as strengths?
Back in the days of behavioral psychology, this was a major topic. It would be interesting to see what new results have been discovered in recent research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- PTS
(www.parttimescholar.com)
I agree that the experiment illustrates the focal selectivity of perceptual processes rather than an aspect of memory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, the point of drivers focusing on texting rather than the demanding perceptual requirements of driving is very well taken.
Was informative until author's bias intruded. The cumulative or pulse effects of too many artificial antigens introduced into a developing brain by multianitgen injection of a vaccine into an infant is a logical hypothesis for a cause of autism and until good studies on animal models rule it out. The vaccine industry and the FDA are under heavy suspicion of collusion and fabrication of data because of their too cozy back slapping support of each other.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@musubk
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSelective Focus is a photographic term. It means to focus sharply on the subject and blur out the distracting background.
That is neither a fault nor a weakness - it is a technique.
As a photographer can open the depth of field to make everything in view sharp, so can an observer, IF that is a desirable technique to use at the time.
In this experiment, observers were told to focus on the whites and ignore the blacks.
After they did so successfully, I think it a bit of a fraud to castigate them for NOT ignoring the blacks.
@Madd Barkington
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree. I lost count of the passes when I saw the gorilla, so I guess I'm easily distracted.
Everybody would have lost count had it pulled somebody's head off.
Attention is vital to establishment of memories and their retrieval.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe authors are fooling themselves when they argue that to be partly wrong is to be, in effect, completely fooled. It's like arguing that ignorance is simply foolishness - their ignorance excluded?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMust have been much more fun watching young women bouncing balls around with each other than the monkey with the football...intracytoplasmic selective site injection.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTexting is pretty much a lost cause in many jurisdictions (it's now illegal), but I'm not convinced it's so bad. We routinely ask fighter pilots to fly and target a weapon at the same time. Part of the issue relates to keeping your eyes on the road. Sending a text is inherently a low-priority task and can easily be interrupted by a higher-priority one, such as a kid crossing the road, providing you are watching the road. Fighter jets handle this with a heads-up display. I find using a handheld GPS held near my line of vision less distracting than using a dash-mounted one further away.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I FIRST drive a car, distraction (such as an argument-in-the-car and thinking-where-to-go) almost caused me an accident. When you're new and you're thinking, you CAN'T see the red light (from the car in front!), or gauge speed when slowing down, or make complicated manoeuvre (such as fitting yourself into a line of car while you're moving in parallel), because YOU CAN'T SEE! -The problem with being new is to handle the torrent of 'procedure' (recently learnt from driving school), trying to avoid harm (without really knowing the scope of danger), and piloting the car, WHILE SEEING STUFF.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen experience increase, 2 things disappear:
1. awareness (there's no heightened senses like the initial days)
2. eye jitter (you now know where to put your eyes on)
and 1 new thing appear;
1. multi-tasking.
Basically, your awareness is no longer important, you can shift attention to the road, and then back into your thought, and then back to the road, and again harmlessly, while driving. This is what it meant by "focus".
When I FIRST drive a car, distraction (such as an argument-in-the-car and thinking-where-to-go) almost caused me an accident. When you're new and you're thinking, you CAN'T see the red light (from the car in front!), or gauge speed when slowing down, or make complicated manoeuvre (such as fitting yourself into a line of car while you're moving in parallel), because YOU CAN'T SEE! -The problem with being new is to handle the torrent of 'procedure' (recently learnt from driving school), trying to avoid harm (without really knowing the scope of danger), and piloting the car, WHILE SEEING STUFF.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen experience increase, 2 things disappear:
1. awareness (there's no heightened senses like the initial days)
2. eye jitter (you now know where to put your eyes on)
and 1 new thing appear;
1. multi-tasking.
Basically, your awareness is no longer important, you can shift attention to the road, and then back into your thought, and then back to the road, and again harmlessly, while driving. This is what it meant by "focus".
Not that it's relevant to the topic at hand, but I have to contradict your assertion that you're not convinced that texting is "so bad". In over thirty years of running emergency rooms, I've lost count of the number of dead people brought in who died because they were distracted from their primary task - driving, and the number of innocent victims killed because some driver was distracted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people are not fighter pilots, and the typical road bears no resemblance to "the wild blue yonder". Fighter pilots do what they have to do because that is part of their job, and they would be the first to acknowledge that what they do is dangerous.
There is no justification for texting while driving, and I don't think the likes of Richard Bong, Francis Gabreski and Robin Olds would support the practice, considering its effect on situational awareness.
Anyone who texts while driving is a candidate for the Darwin Awards.
did anybody else notice that HALF the viewers DID notice the gorilla? i think this is a great insight on the root problems in our society. was this test done in other cultures?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy understanding is that the gorilla is processed pre-attentively in our sensory memory but does not pass through into our working memory. This is because our perceptual load is at full capacity trying to count the passes between players. Its often referred to as inattentional blindness or amnesia as our iconic visual sensory memory can only retain information for up to around 200 milliseconds if information is not commited to our working memory
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould it be that the gorilla was assumed to be a black shirt and so not counted? What if it had been a white gorilla or a polar bear? Would that have made a difference?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswow, now I am really intrigued. no one as of yet has noticed my previous comment that HALF of the people DID notice the gorilla. is this a continuation of the non-observation of the gorilla? does this have to do with faulty wiring or is there something else going on?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"That is what I call Selective Focus - being able to stick to the assigned task at hand while ignoring distractions."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I think a fake gorilla can be safely dismissed in order to maintain primary focus. Would a wild tiger have been dismissed?"
"Sometimes, it's not bad to ignore something."
"Isn't it interesting how people rationalize their faults as strengths?"
Isn't it interesting how people rationalize their strengths as faults?
Our vision has evolved to be immersed in a 3D world, not to observe what appears in a 2D window that is itself immersed in a 3D world. I wonder how the gorilla experiment would work withhe observer either actually present in the room or watching a 3D, rather than 2D, movie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a matter of interest, my dog watches TV but never reacts to anything he sees. It is probable that the colors used to fool the human eye do not fool the dog eye in the same way. He does however react to the sound of someone knocking on a door or ringing a door bell. As far as I can tell, he only reacts when he is in the correct location to get full benefit of the stereo sound.
Jacques Lacan, the french author of "The fundamental principles of psychoanalysis" series, inventor of the psychotherapy technique that wears his name: "I return to you like a mirror the contents you give me", a procedure that guarantees the destruction of both the patient's libido and his/her I, wrote also: "The unconscious always lies". Beware of transfer, beware more of countertransfer. Sometimes, psychotherapy can be explained in a few words: it's just psychopats abusing neurotics. Salud +
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see everything I see. Therefore I perceive that I see everything. The things that I do not see, I do not notice that I do not see them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are some exceptions, such as when the memory of previous vision is present, or when others report what they see.
I suspect that this is part of the denial, whether in an addict thinking he or she can cope, or a person whose ability to drive has lessened due to age. If the change happened gradually enough, then the person is fooled into thinking he(she) can do everything he(she) used to do, when the reality is that he(she) can do everything that he(she) can do.
I am a man. I used to think that I knew everything, until one day my 17 year old daughter asked me a question about some personal things. Then I realized that there was another whole universe of reality about which I knew very little.
I know everything about my world so it is easy to fall into the illusion that I know everything about the world.
Herbert de Launay
Since I knew there would be a gorilla I obviously saw the gorilla. On the down side, the gorilla distracted me because it was so thin it was obviously starving. I thus only counted 14 passes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real point here is that perception absolutely is not reality and we (the vast majority of humans, if not us all) have to stop thinking otherwise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have to stop thinking that eyewitness testimony is the best data when, more often than not, it is the most unreliable. That what we know, and are told, is simply little more than what others perceive or believe, but more often than not, not even close to reality.
That we have to trust objective science first, not last, rather than what we "think" we know. If truly objective science (very strong emphasis on objectivity) does not jibe with our knowledge or beliefs, it is our knowledge and beliefs we need to adjust, not the science.
And, for the vast majority of us, in just the everyday mundanity of life, what we need to get is that what we see on TV and in ads and in the news (from any or all sides of an issue) is just one point of view, often a very flawed and/or manipulated one, and its intent is not to re-adjust us to REALITY but rather, to prey on our propensity for persistent perceptive failures to see reality, and thus deceive, manipulate and/or exploit us.
That is the real point of this if, like me, you are a devout and proselytizing atheist, rationalist and person of reason who forever strives for a far more reality based version of humanity, human consciousness and, simply put, a truly advanced form of universal intellect.
The truly gifted intellect knows how very little it knows and how flawed its knowledge, wisdom and perception be. Question everything. Test everything. Research everything. Accept nothing at face value.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRigor is God and Skepticism is the One True Path. Blessed are the Skeptics, for they shall advance our primitive, feeble and ignorant little species to the next level, if not acme, of truth, comprehension and understanding of all that is, was and shall ever be. The rest is just static.
The article was talking about the phenomenon of confusing correlation with causation which is a true problem that people have ;NOT the legitimate possible connection of vaccines and autism. The a-priori assumption that they DO cause autism with out the evidence is the fault. NOT the possible science proved with the scientific method and its legitimate evidence. Therefore, the author may have been referring to parents of autistic kids who make the assumption without the hard work of being sure that it is true in a rigorous way. There is nothing wrong with pointing out a logical fallacy. On the other hand i personally have looked at the science behind vaccines as a possible causative factor in autism and after 3 years of looking i have found the evidence and the idea itself as very unlikely. See, for example: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/05/12/vaccines-do-not-cause-autism/ Read more about delusions here: http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/delusion.shtml
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article was talking about the phenomenon of confusing correlation with causation which is a true problem that people have ;NOT the legitimate possible connection of vaccines and autism. The a-priori assumption that they DO cause autism with out the evidence is the fault. NOT the possible science proved with the scientific method and its legitimate evidence. Therefore, the author may have been referring to parents of autistic kids who make the assumption without the hard work of being sure that it is true in a rigorous way. There is nothing wrong with pointing out a logical fallacy. On the other hand i personally have looked at the science behind vaccines as a possible causative factor in autism and after 3 years of looking i have found the evidence and the idea itself as very unlikely. See, for example: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/05/12/vaccines-do-not-cause-autism/ Read more about delusions here: http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/delusion.shtml
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe suggest to read Proust is a reply to gregdavid's comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou missed it, LOL.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe gorilla was not seen. By the eyes. Not dismissed; it was not SEEN.