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Simons and Chabris (1999): cognitive - Coggle Diagram
Simons and Chabris (1999): cognitive
Background
Inattentional blindness- the failure to see an event or object in your field of vision because you are so focused on other elements of what you can see. The event you 'miss' is unrelated to the task at hand so does not draw your attention.
Aim
To confirm that inattentional blindness occurs in a realistic complex situation, a video recording which is sustained
Method
Lab experiment
Design
Independent meausres
IV
1/2. the transparent gorilla/umbrella woman condition
3/4. the opaque gorilla/umbrella woman condition
5/6. easy/hard condition
DV
Number of participants in each of the 16 conditions who noticed the unexpected event
Sample
228 observers, undergraduate student based at Harvard university
Sampling method
Volunteer sampling- some got paid, others got a small candy bar
Procedure
Participants were informed that the task was to watch a clip of basketball players and pay attention to either the white team or the black team and count the number of passes made.
The task was either easy- mental note of passes made, or hard- mental note of throws and bounces made by their team
After watching the video they were asked questions like, 'did you notice anything unusual?' 'did you see a gorilla/ woman with an umbrella walk across the screen?' if answered 'yes' they were asked to provide details and no further questions were asked.
Results
54% noticed the event. Transparent video- 42%, opaque video- 67% noticed the event.
As the task difficulty increased, the level of inattentional blindness increased. 64% of the 'easy' condition saw the event compared to 45% in the 'hard' condition.
Hard and transparent video- 27% saw the event compared to 56% of the easy and transparent video.
Conclusions
Inattentional blindness does occur in dynamic events that are sustained. Due to the fact that the event was missed even in the clear opaque video, it is not just because the video in previous studies was unclear that inattentional blindness occured.
There is no consciousness perception without attention.