Simon and Chabris (contemporary study)

Question 1

2 pieces of background research for this study

Answer 1

Mack and Rock
Neisser

Question 2

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 2

When someone fails to notice an unexpected stimuli in their visual field because their attention is focused on a different element/task

Question 3

How did Mack and Rock investigate inattentional blindness?

Answer 3

Images of crosses were presented to participants, asked to judge which line in the cross was longer
Then presented a smiley face (unexpected event): 25% of participants did not see this

Question 4

Video Neisser used to investigate inattentional blindness

Answer 4

Overlayed 3 separate videos of 2 teams playing basketball and a woman with an umbrella walking across the screen (unexpected event) to create a transparent effect

Question 5

Task of Neisser

Answer 5

Watch the video and count number of times a team passed the ball (attended event)

Question 6

Results of Neisser

Answer 6

22/28 participants missed unexpected umbrella woman event

Question 7

How many aims did this study have?

Answer 7

4

Question 8

Aim of Simon and Chabris: Transparent/ opaque video

Answer 8

Investigate whether the same level of inattentional blindness is achieved had a realistic video been recorded:
Opaque effect vs Transparent effect

Question 9

What uis the point in investigating transparent/opaque effect in different conditions?

Answer 9

To see if Neissers findings on missing the unexpected event were truly due to phenomenon of inattentional blindness and not the transparent video he used

Question 10

How did Simon and Chabris investigate the transparent/ opaque video?

Answer 10

Show half participants an overlayed transparent video like Neisser
and the other half an opaque video all filmed in one go

Question 11

Aim of Simon and Chabris; similarity of unexpected event to attended task?

Answer 11

To investigate whether participants had the same inattentional blindness than if the unexpected event was similar to the attended task: eg both are the same colour

Question 12

How did SC investigate similarity of unexpected event to attended task?

Answer 12

By giving half the participants instructions to pay attention toa team in white shirts (not similar colour to black umbrella/gorilla)
And other half to black shirts (same colour to black umbrella/gorilla)

Question 13

Aim of SC: nature of unexpected event

Answer 13

To investigate if the unexpected event is particularly unusual, will the same level of participants’ inattentional blindness to this event will be shown ????????

Question 14

How did SC investigate aim of the nature of the unexpected event?

Answer 14

By having half the participants see the unexpected event of a gorilla, very unusual at a basketball game
By having the other half see a woman carrying an umbrella, not so unusual

Question 15

Aim of SC: difficulty level of attended task the participants were given?

Answer 15

To investigate if there was a difference in inattentional blindness shown if attended task the participants were asked to do was harder or easier

Question 16

How did SC investigate difficulty of attended task?

Answer 16

Half the participants were given the task of counting number of passes their allocated team (white OR black shirts ) = only 1 count
Half the participants were given task of keeping separate counts of bounce + aerial passes for their allocated team

Question 17

Out of the 4 aims, which is related to investigating Neissers work?

Answer 17

Showing half the participants an opaque video and the other half a transparent video, were Neisser’s results due to nature of his video (lesss realistic and ghostly) or inattentional blindness?

Question 18

SC’s new aims

Answer 18

4 aims: difficulty of task, nature of unexpected event, similarity between unexpected event and task

Question 19

Sample size

Answer 19

192 participants

Question 20

Number of conditions

Answer 20

16

Question 21

number of participants per conditon

Answer 21

12

Question 22

Why was data from 28 participants disqualified?

Answer 22

Participant aware of inattentional blindness etc
Increases construct validity, as participants who may have guessed aim of study were left out who may be aware to look out for uexpected event thus not an accurate measure of inattentional blindness

Question 23

2 unexpected events

Answer 23

Gorilla
Umbrella woman

Question 24

2 teams

Answer 24

Black shirt
white shirt

Question 25

2 tasks

Answer 25

keep count of passes keep separate count of bounce and aerial passes

Question 26

Main procedure

Answer 26

Participant watched a 75 second video depending on what of the 16 conditions they were in Then asked what they saw eg if they saw the unexpected event

Question 27

The dependent variable

Answer 27

Whether participants reported seeing the unexpected event (gorilla/umbrella woman walking in the background)

Question 28

Overall percent of participants who reported seeing the unexpected event

Answer 28

54%

Question 29

Overall percent of participants who FAILED to see the unexpected event

Answer 29

46% Showed inattentional blindness

Question 30

What was standardised?

Answer 30

The videos for 16 conditions kept the following variables the same: Same order the ball is thrown in Same location (outside elevator doors) Same video length of 75 seconds Same time unexpected event occurred (44s in) Same duration of unexpected event (5 secs)

Question 31

Sample method

Answer 31

Self selected sample as participants volunteered for research

Question 32

Results for comparing the transparent vs opaque conditions

Answer 32

The unexpected event was noticed significantly less in the transparent condition compared to the opaque condition Potentially because higher cognitive load when watching basketball team when transparent

Question 33

Results for the similarity of unexpected event to attended task

Answer 33

If participants were told to focus on the black shirt team they were more likely to see the gorilla compared to the white team So contradicts Neisser’s claim that similarity to task does not have an effect on in attentional blindness

Question 34

Conclusion

Answer 34

Directing attention to a primary task results in people failing to see an unexpected event nearly half of the time when the unexpected event occurs directly in their field or view and is there for a sustained period of time

Question 35

Concurrent validity

Answer 35

Agrees with previous research by Neisser and Mack and Rock that participants will fail to see something directly in their field of view that is sustained for a period of time if their focus is directed on something else as 46% of participants failed to see the umbrella woman/gorilla So an accurate way to measure inattentional blindness

Question 36

Sample method

Answer 36

Opportunity sample of Harvard students who volunteered for chocolate

Question 37

How can this study be applied?

Answer 37

By driving laws: 46% of participants showed inattentional blindness due to directing attention to separate task. So place laws to prohibit driving while on phone etc.

Question 38

Similarities to Moray's study

Answer 38

Both completed on students Moray - Oxford, SC - Harvard Both lab experiments

Question 39

Differences to Moray's study

Answer 39

Different types of attention studied Moray - auditory, SC - visual Different countries Moray - UK, SC - USA Different exp designs Moray - Repeated measures in exp 2, SC - Independent measures

Question 40

What type of experiment was this and why?

Answer 40

Lab experiment because we measured the affect of 4 IVs in a controlled environment

Question 41

Experimental design

Answer 41

Independent measures because 12 different participants were in the 16 different conditions and results for each condition was compared

Question 42

Sampling bias evaluation

Answer 42

Used Harvard students - may possess better cognitive ability + be of higher socioeconomic bg so not representative of whole population But from a Uni, may sampled large range of cultural bgs Self selected sample - select for participants who are thrill seeking/ public spirited

Question 43

How has Simon and Chabris changed our understanding of attention from MOray?

Answer 43

Adds to our understanding that rejection of info and input of only selected info occurs in visual attention

Question 44

How has Simon and Chabris NOT changed our understanding of attention from MOray?

Answer 44

Same model of attention proved: will not notice a stimuli due to focusing on a different task, in which we have selected to input information from

Question 45

How has SC changed our understanding of individual diversity?

Answer 45

Did not because no individual factors were investigated on why there are differences in noticing unexpected event/ noticing it

Question 46

How has SC changed our understanding of social diversity?

Answer 46

Did Not because the factors of gender, occupation, ethnicity, age etc were not investigated To find impact on inattentional blindness Because the same demographic of students from prestigious Uni were investigated

Question 47

How has SC changed our understanding of cultural diversity?

Answer 47

Has, SC investigated in US whereas Moray was in the UK However these are both western, english speaking cultures so not variety of cultures investigated + No variety in results were found