Inattentional blindness is an explanation for our inability to see certain changes that are usually considered obvious.
(Video: YouTube)
CommentaryDerren Brown has demonstrated this effect with different races, accents, and even genders! While the original studies had a fail rate of 75%, Brown's informal study had about a 50% fail rate.
Meta
Think of all the things we don't notice. Did you notice that in the first video the color of the presenter's shirt changed?
See Also
- Person Swap at YouTube for Derren Brown's version of this experiment.
- What Clown on a Unicycle? Studying Cellphone Distraction at The New York Times for a discussion about a similar phenomenon.
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4 comments:
Hmm. Interesting. I wonder if this is why many men usually don't notice when women have had a haircut.
@Victoria: Inattentional blindness seems to plague men and women alike. However, you may be referring gender differences in perception.
I am not surprised- probably our brain does not want to pay attention to all changes presented to us all the time, but people for whom event has some significance pay more attention.I still believe brain registering everything, but we are not aware of it. I am interested in people who have impaired vision - are they paing more attention to details?
@Lana: I couldn't find any studies on inattentional blindness in visually-impaired people, but I did find several studies about how a load on executive memory might play a role. Another interesting study showed that talking on a (hands-free) cell phone induced sustained inattentional blindness.
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