Psychology professor Daniel Simons of the American Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, studying the peculiarities of concentration, repeated his own experiment ten years ago called "Invisible Gorilla."
This time, the scientist set himself other goals. By an experiment, the scientist proved that people expecting extraordinary events in the frame are even more inattentive and more often skip parallel changes than those who do not expect anything, but simply fulfill the conditions of the task.
The results of ten years of research carried out by Professor Simons together with the professor of psychology at Union College in New York Christopher Chabris, scientists summarized in a recently published book.
The new experiment was based on a video created by scientists during an experiment in the late 1990s. Then, as now, a man in a gorilla suit walked slowly through a group of people tossing basketballs to each other. "Gorilla" stopped among the players, some of whom were wearing white T-shirts, the other in black, punching themselves in the chest, and then leaving.
The video was shown to students at Harvard University. Before viewing, participants were asked to count the number of passes made by people wearing white shirts. After watching the video, the students were asked about the gorilla in the frame. This question surprised half of the subjects, who said they hadn't seen anyone except people with balls.
VIDEO: Count the number of passes made by people wearing white shirts
In a deliberately repeated experiment, the scientists expected some viewers to know that at some point a man in a gorilla costume would appear on the screen. However, as it turned out, this fact did not help in any way, but on the contrary, it may have interfered with the participants in the experiment. Most of them missed other changes in the video, such as the change in the color of the curtain in the background from red to yellow, and the fact that one of the girls throwing balls to each other left the stage when the gorilla appeared.
Promotional video:
Of those who knew the gorilla would enter the frame, only 17% noticed at least one other change. Of those participants in the experiment who did not know about the appearance of the gorilla, 29% saw at least one change.
According to Professor Simons, the experiment carried out, most likely, can hardly teach people to be more attentive, but its results can be used by understanding the peculiarities of their perception of the events taking place around them. If a person knows that he cannot concentrate his attention properly, he must take steps to avoid the negative consequences of this. So, for example, such people are not recommended to talk on the phone while driving, as this dramatically reduces the possibility of a quick reaction to unexpected events.
The Monkey Business Illusion video made it to the finals of the Neural Correlate Society's Best Illusion of the Year competition in May this year. The "Invisible Gorilla" also has its own website, where you can buy a book of scientists, DVD and products with corresponding symbols.