How Susceptible Are You To Change Blindness
How Susceptible Are You To Change Blindness
Change blindness is a perceptual phenomenon in which a change in a visual stimulus occurs and the observer is not aware of it. It is actually very common for people to have a poor ability to detect changes. So next time someone comments on how inattentive you are, simply blame the the fundamental limitation of human attention!
Change blindness is a perceptual phenomenon in which a change in a visual stimulus occurs and the observer is not aware of it. It is actually very common for people to have a poor ability to detect changes. So next time someone comments on how inattentive you are, simply blame the the fundamental limitation of human attention!
See how common change blindness is: watch this video and the answer the questions below
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Did you notice the dancing gorilla?
Did you notice the dancing gorilla?
If you didn't notice the gorilla that's due to change blindness. Specifically it's because of selective attention. While you were busy counting how many times the players wearing white passed the ball, you were not paying attention to the dancing gorilla who moved across the stage. Crazy, right?!
Maybe you did notice the gorilla, but did you notice the curtain changing from red to orange?
Maybe you did notice the gorilla, but did you notice the curtain changing from red to orange?
While you may have already known about the dancing gorilla, not noticing the change in the curtain is pretty common. Although it seems like such an obvious change, due to selective attention you were too concentrated on the players to notice even the most apparent change in scenery.
How about noticing a player on the black shirt team leaving the game?
How about noticing a player on the black shirt team leaving the game?
Didn't think anything else changed, did you?? Well, it did! Toward the end of the game, a player in black on the right left the game. Once again, you were too focused on the ball passing to notice this. Change blindness is completely normal and occurs to everyone when they max out there attentional capacity. So don't feel bad about yourself if you didn't notice any of those things - it's totally natural
Now that you understand your susceptibility to change blindness, watch how easy it is to miss even the most obvious of changes
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Those pedestrians had no idea that the "lost tourist" was a completely different person from when he first asked for directions. This illustrates just how imperfect our attention can be. Because we're so focused on the bigger picture at hand - in this instance, providing directions to the tourist - we don't assimilate the differences in our visual field.
Astonishing right!