rude awakening

I discovered something very interesting today that I would like to share, but first you will have to watch a video. To view the video, you will need to have Java active in your browser. The video is fairly large (7.5MB) and it might take a while to finish loading. When viewing the video, try to count the total number of times that the people wearing white pass the basketball. Do not count the passes made by the people wearing black.

http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html

Do not read on until you have watched the video and counted the number of passes.

So I was sleeping listening intently to the lecturer today as usual, with my eyes closed. Suddenly the voice stopped, so I opened my eyes, and there was this silent video playing in front of me. I didn't really have a clue what was going on, so I just watched as a bunch of kids threw balls back and forth.

Then the video ended and the lecturer asked, so how many passes did they make? (Ah eureka, now I know what we were supposed to do) 14? 15? 16? Who saw 17? Did anyone see more than 18? A bunch of hands went up?

Have you watched the video yet? If not you are going to spoil this for yourself.

Who saw the black gorilla? There was a stupefied silence; a few hands went up but most people just glanced around them in confusion. So the lecturer played the video again and lo and behold, the black gorilla walked into the centre of the screen halfway through the video, beat its chest, and calmly exited.

So he explained that this experiment showed how human beings can only focus on one thing at one time, and shut out everything else. Because we had been told to count the passes, we were so preoccupied that we failed to notice the ridiculous primate waltzing across the room.

I was rather ashamed, because I had watched the whole video, did not bother to count the passes (because I didn't know we were supposed to) and I still didn't see the gorilla.

I felt even worse because I read up on this exact experiment last week, had a good laugh at how blind some people are, and I still didn't see the gorilla. And in case anyone is wondering, it was definitely the same video he showed because this is actually a very well known pschological experiment.

A friend commented that he smelled a trick, so he counted the passes made by both teams. Well no wonder he didn't see the gorilla.

For a more complete explanation of the phenomenon of inattentional blindness, you can read here. You can also find out about the people behind this experiment and related research here.

This lecture was delivered by John Seely Brown, Chief of Confusion. He was formerly Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation, lecturer at University of Southern California, and one of the most engaging speakers I have ever heard. From the time of my rude awakening, he succeeded in holding my attention for the next 90 minutes. I assure you that is no mean feat. (Click on his name for more material on related topics)