Simons & Chabris

Question 1

Key Terms

Inattentional Blindness

Answer 1

When you fail to see something because you’re paying attention to
something else

Question 2

Background

Answer 2

In the 1970s, Neisser tested sustained inattentional blindness by showing participants a video of two teams of players passing basketballs between them and telling the participants to count the number of passes made by one team. At one point a woman with an umbrella walked across the screen, but almost all participants failed to see her. The video was made up of three overlaid videos, which created a transparent effect

Question 3

Aim

Answer 3

To investigate whether the results of Neisser’s study were influenced by the transparent effect

Question 4

Sample

Answer 4

192 participants were included in the analysis, mostly undergraduate students from Harvard University, USA

Question 5

Procedure

Answer 5

Each participant was shown a 75 second video clip and asked questions on what they had seen. There were 16 conditions of the experiment with
participants only taking part in one condition. The 16 conditions were based around the 4 independent
variables

Question 6

Independent Variables

Answer 6

1. Transparent OR opaque video (Video Appearance)
2. Woman carrying umbrella OR gorilla suit (The Event)
3. Asked to count black team passes OR asked to count white team passes (Similarity of Task)
4. Asked to count passes OR asked to count bounce passes and aerial passes (Difficulty of Task)

Question 7

Results

Answer 7

Overall = 54% saw the event
Opaque = 66.5% / Transparent = 41.6%
Umbrella = 65.5% / Gorilla = 42.6%
Black = 67% / White = 8%
Easy = 63.5% / Difficult = 44.6%

Question 8

Conclusion

Answer 8

The study shows how paying attention to one task may result in people failing to see an unexpected event nearly half of the time. Attention is a limited resource