We Can Be Blind To Things Right In Front Of Us

Let’s face it, we are all sometimes guilty of inattentional blindness—failing to see the unexpected because our attention is focused elsewhere. In 1999, American psychologists Daniel Simons and Chris Chabris demonstrated this in a humorous fashion with their now-famous Invisible Gorilla Test. The two psychologists asked participants to watch a video of people in white and black shirts passing a basketball to each other. The participants were then asked to count the number of passes each white team member made.

As this was being done, a person in a gorilla costume made his way to the middle of the group, beat his chest, and walked out of view. After the experiment, the psychologists found that half of the participants failed to see the gorilla because they were so engrossed in counting the passes. This experiment has conclusively proven that attention is a vital factor that affects our perceptual and visual fields.