I bet 95% of you will miss this

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around a video related to inattentional blindness, where participants are asked to count basketball passes while missing other surprising elements in the video. The conversation touches on cognitive psychology, attention mechanisms, and personal experiences with the video.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express that they missed the surprise element in the video, while others claim they did not, often attributing their experience to attention span or prior knowledge of the video.
  • A participant with a background in cognitive psychology discusses experiments on inattentional blindness, mentioning that a significant percentage of men fail to notice a brunette in the video.
  • There is a suggestion that the experimental setup could be improved to test attention differently, such as introducing a more visually distracting element.
  • Several participants reference the historical context of the experiment, noting its repetition in various forms, including the famous gorilla suit experiment.
  • Discussions arise about the perceptions of physical attributes of individuals in the video, with some participants sharing personal preferences and humorous takes on the subject.
  • One participant raises the question of how many details are missed when focusing on a specific task, emphasizing the nature of selective attention.
  • Another participant mentions that the original concept of this experiment is quite old, linking it to previous studies and suggesting that the phenomenon of inattentional blindness has been well-documented.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the effectiveness of the video or the statistics mentioned regarding inattentional blindness. Multiple competing views remain regarding personal experiences with the video and interpretations of the experiment's implications.

Contextual Notes

Some participants reference specific studies and experiments related to inattentional blindness, but there is no agreement on the validity of the statistics or the interpretations of the findings. The discussion includes personal anecdotes that may not be representative of broader trends.

gravenewworld
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and if you have seen this before SHHHHHHHHHHHhhh! Posters, don't spoil it in a response please.
 
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gravenewworld said:




and if you have seen this before SHHHHHHHHHHHhhh!


Posters, don't spoil it in a response please.


Well I followed the directions. That's all I can say.
 
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Nice! I missed it :cry:
 
I watched it few months ago so I knew about it
but still missed it ><
 
I didn't miss it, but then that may be because I didn't have the attention span to follow the directions for more than about 10 seconds.
 
I study cognitive psychology so I've seen this done many different ways in experiments on inattentional blindness. The most interesting one, I have seen is this:

If you look very carefully, you'll see that there is a brunette in the video, but about 87% of men don't see her the first time they watch the video.
 
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Are you serious MIH? :confused:
 
Oops. wrong color MIH. Who knows the new color for invisible text?
 
That seems very surprising MIH! Where did you get these stats from? (or are you just cracking a joke :smile:). I can see the idea behind it being true, but it needs a better setup to work (on me at least).
 
  • #10
Is this the one with the suit of ape in it?
 
  • #11
Evo said:
Oops. wrong color MIH. Who knows the new color for invisible text?

It's E3E3E3 according to photoshop

I hope
 
  • #12
I am just keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeding!
 
  • #13
I got it right!
 
  • #14
I assumed there was a trick and didn't even try to follow the instructions so I definitely saw it.

MIH said:
I study cognitive psychology so I've seen this done many different ways in experiments on inattentional blindness. The most interesting one, I have seen is this:

Sorry MIH but not all men prefer blondes ;-p , or even large hood ornaments for that matter. Unfortunately that brunette looks to be about 15. :-/
 
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  • #15
Holy ****, that's hilarious.
 
  • #16
Note* The counting part that is :frown:
 
  • #17
Yeah, brunette's are my fav.
 
  • #18
TheStatutoryApe said:
I
Sorry MIH but not all men prefer blondes ;-p , or even large hood ornaments for that matter. Unfortunately that brunette looks to be about 15. :-/

same here---

-10 points for being blonde
-15 points for (too) large breasts
-10 addition points for being a bleached blonde
-20 more points for breast augmentation

exceptions do apply however
 
  • #19
I didn't think her breasts were fake, but I will agree that her hair (the "blonde") looks horrible.

The OP is really old in some sense: isn't this a really old concept (the basketballs and gorilla)?

edit... looks like a Harvard professor performed this experiment in 1999: http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Simons1999.pdf#search=%22Simons%20and%20Chabris%20on%20sustained%20inattentional%20blindness%22

edit2... wasn't the "original" video posted here a couple years ago? I could have sworn I seen it somewhere.
 
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  • #20
B. Elliott said:
A timeless concept!

*edit* Nevermind. I thought your mention of gorillas was a reference to pre-cro magnan and the basketballs to... watermelons. (IYKWIM):biggrin:
 
  • #21
Math Is Hard said:


Uhh the one on the left is disgusting.
 
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  • #22
This experiment has been done over and over and over and over..
sometimes it's a person in a gorilla suit. sometimes it's a person with an umbrella. The "count the basketball passes" experimental paradigm is pretty standard.

Would be kind of interesting to try it with a sexy girl/guy walking through the scene and see if it makes any difference.

Here is a video on the attention system and things we miss:


and I could care less about brunettes or blondes. It was a joke.
 
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  • #23
Math Is Hard said:
This experiment has been done over and over and over and over..
sometimes it's a person in a gorilla suit. sometimes it's a person with an umbrella. The "count the basketball passes" experimental paradigm is pretty standard.

Would be kind of interesting to try it with a sexy girl/guy walking through the scene and see if it makes any difference.
Or maybe have all males that one by one drop off screen and are replaced by similarly dressed females.

MIH said:
Here is a video on the attention system and things we miss:

That is just cool. You'd almost think it was a comedy skit.
And I especially like the Adams quote at the beginning.

MIH said:
and I could care less about brunettes or blondes. It was a joke.
I know. :-p
 
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  • #24
Have you seen amazing colour changing card trick?



Talking about blonde: I had a lot of fun observing myself concentrating on the blonde - even if I prefer brunette :smile:
 
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  • #25
i saw a video similar to this a few months ago, yet i missed the bear again!
 
  • #26
mattmns said:
I didn't think her breasts were fake, but I will agree that her hair (the "blonde") looks horrible.

The OP is really old in some sense: isn't this a really old concept (the basketballs and gorilla)?

I didn't think they were fake either--those were just bonus (minus) points when they do present.

Women may notice the gorilla more often, as it's a sport (but they are men, too, so...maybe not).

If you weren't told you 'count' (and we're all sheep, in some circumstances) , I bet there wouldn't be a higher % who see it.---It's like a magician's trick--distraction.
 
  • #27
The point is, that so far, no one in this thread who has never done an experiment like this before or who has never seen the video before has been able to count the number of passes AND identify the surprise at the same time. The only people in this thread who noticed the surprise only got it because they weren't paying attention to the number of passes. This raises the interesting point--how many of the details are you really missing when you are supposedly concentrating on something?
 
  • #28
In the card color trick you are not asked to follow anything - still you can miss a lot.
 
  • #29
From the The caption competition thread
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=79028&page=149


http://www.jokechallenge.com/funny_pictures/women_fix_cars.jpg
















How many saw the car in the photo?
 
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  • #30
Looks like a BMW 5 series with an E28 body style in production from 1982 - 1988. If I had to guess I'd say it was a 528.
 

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