Simon and Chabris

Question 1

Define selective attention and inattentional blindness

Answer 1

selective attention- when we focus our attention on a particular object in the environment for certain period of time

inattentional blindness - when we fail to see an event or object in our visual field because we are focused on other things

Question 2

Give the background to simon and chabris study

Answer 2

Mack and rock

investigated inattentional blindness by presenting a small cross on a screen and asking participants to judge which arm of the cross was longer

after several trials, an unexpected object eg. brightly coloured rectangle, appeared on the screen along with the cross

they reported participants failed to notice the unexpected object as they were paying attention to how long the arms of the crosses were

Question 3

Give aims of simon and chabris study

Answer 3

To see whether people will notice an unexpected event if they are paying attention to something else

To see if a more difficult task increases the rate of inattentional blindness

Question 4

Describe the sample of simon and chabris study

Answer 4

228 undergraduate students, USA

Some volunteered without payment, some were given a candy bar, other received payment

192 students results were used as 36 students already knew about inattentional blindess

Question 5

What was the research method in simon and chabris study? Why?

Answer 5

Laboratory experiment

IV - whether the participant took part in had umbrella women or gorilla and if video was transparent or opaque
and if task was easy or hard and if they followed those in white or black t shirts (16 conditions)

DV = number of participants who noticed the unexpected event

Controls = all clips were 75 seconds, unexpected event occured around the same time, standardised script

Question 6

What was the experimental design in simon and chabris study? Why?

Answer 6

Independent measures design

16 separate conditions
= gorilla or umbrella women
= opaque or transparent video
= easy or hard task
= following black or white t-shirts

Once participants had seen the gorilla/umbrella women in one video, they would look for it in another (practise effect) so it is better to have different groups

Question 7

Describe the procedure of simon and chabris study?

Answer 7

Participant watched one of the four videos. Between 44-48 s an unexpected event occurred - either gorilla or umbrella women walked across the scene. The video was also transparent or opaque.

Participants were also asked to do either an easy task (mental note of passes made by white or black team) or difficult task (keep separate mental note of no. of high passes and bounce passes made by wither white or black team

After the video, participants were asked questions to see whether they noticed the unexpected event eg. ‘Did you see anything unusual?’ ‘Did you see a gorilla/women carrying an umbrella’

Question 8

Describe the results of simon and chabris study

Answer 8

out of all 192 participants across all conditions, 54% noticed the unexpected event and 46% didn’t

More participants noticed the unexpected event in the opaque condition than transparent condition.

More participants noticed the unexpected event in the easy than hard condition

The umbrella women was noticed more than the gorilla, but the gorilla was noticed more by participants who were following the team dressed in black

Question 9

Describe the conclusion of simon and chabris study

Answer 9

People are less likely to notice an unexpected event and show inattentional blindness in video with transparent figures than opaque.

Intentional blindness increases when the people are doing a task that requires greater attention.

Individuals are more likely to notice unexpected events if they are similar to the events they are paying attention to.

Question 10

Assess generalisability of simon and chabris study

Answer 10

undergraduate students

students may have been more vigilant than average so not representative of wider population

USA

other cultures may be more vigilant too - ethnocentric

Question 11

Assess the reliability of simon and chabris study

Answer 11

21 different experimenters and range of tv screen sizes used
= led to inconsistencies
= reduced reliability

standardised procedure
= standardised script
= same questions at end of video
= improves reliability

Question 12

What are the applications of simon and chabris study

Answer 12

shows how we fail to notice certian events in real-life situations when our attention is focused on something else

used during driving tests to warn people of the need to watch out for hazards (unexpected events eg. broken down car or bike)

Question 13

Assess validity of simon and chabris study

Answer 13

LOW ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
= watched video under controlled conditions and asked to count ball passes
= artificial task
= however, watching a video is an everyday task

Question 14

Discuss ethics in simon and chabris study

Answer 14

Deception
as to true aim - weren’t told that their inattentional blindness was being recorded

Protection from harm
no undue distress

Debriefed
and able to watch the video again if they hadn’t seen the gorilla or umbrella women

Question 15

Assess the individual, social and cultural diversity in simon and chabris’ study

Answer 15

INDIVIDUAL
yes, differences between indivduals.
study showed that some individuals are more likely than other to be affected by visual inattentional blindness
46% participants failed to see the unattended event whereas 54% did

SOCIAL
used males and females so has gender diversity
however used only undergraduate students so less socially diverse as they are higher socio-economic class

CULTURAL
none
only carried out in one-culture USA

Question 16

How does Simon and Chabris relate to the cognitive area

Answer 16

Cognitive are views mental processes such as attention, memory, perception and thinking as key to understanding human behaviour

as it looks at attention, which is a mental process. shows we fail to attend unusual events in our environment if we are paying attention to something else.

eg.participants doing hard task found it more difficult to notice the unexpected event

Question 17

How does Simon and Chabris’ study improve our understanding of the key theme, attention, compared to Moray’s study? [5]

Answer 17

= showed how people can selectively pay attention to things in their visual field whereas Moray’s study only looked at auditory selective attention

= morays study provided evidence for auditory selective attention. found that when paying attention to something their name could penetrate the attention block, but unimportant info couldn’t.

= simon and chabris demonstrated visual selective attention.it showed that when pepole focus their attention on something in visual field, they miss unexpected events eg. gorilla.