Simons And Chabris Flashcards
Area
Cognitive
Background: what’s inattention blindness
The failure to see an event or object in your field of vision because you’re focussed on other elements.
What are the 2 types of research that have investigated in-attentional blindness?
A computer based dynamic: visual equivalent to Morays work on auditory attention. Participants asked to judge line lengths that made up crosses and data was collected on whether they would miss ‘unexpected events’ like smiley faces appearing. Mack and Rock.
Lacked ecological validity.
A video based dynamic- ‘selective looking’. Neisser et al. Sustained inattentional blindness (lasted multiple seconds). Participants instructed to count number of passes made by two basket ball teams. While focussed on this task, unexpected event of woman with umbrella walked onto the screen. Data collected on whether she was noticed by participants.
Aims and variables tested
-Wanted to confirm that inattentional blindness occurs in a realistic, complex situation (5+ seconds of unexpected events still unnoticed by observers).
- Wanted to go further than Neisser by testing a number of variables:
- Would similarity of unexpected event to attended event have an effect on inattentional blindness?
- Would a particularly unusual event be more likely to be detected?
- Would giving participants a more difficult task to do increase the rate of inattentional blindness?
- Would use of a more realistic (opaque) video give different findings from those obtained via Neisser’s transparent video?
Research methods
Lab experiment (IVs and DVs) Self report when participants get asked questions at the end.
Experimental design
Independent measures because there are 4 conditions
Sample
Sampling method
228 participants
Mainly undergraduate students from Harvard university
Self-selecting
Some volunteered for free, some for a large candy bar and others got payment for taking part in this and another study.
Description of the video clip
Same actors for each clip
Same location outside 3 lift doors
Lasted 75 seconds
2 teams of 3 players in white /black shirts
44-48 seconds in, the unexpected event occurred which lasted 5 seconds.
Conditions for IVs
- Opaque or transparent video
- Participants focussed on white shirt team or black shirt team
- Easy task: participants asked to count how many passes.
Difficult task: participants asked to count number of bounce passes and aerial passes. - The unexpected event was either the gorilla or the woman with an umbrella.
Procedure
-Participants tested individually
-Asked to count the number of passes in the white/ black team
-Participants kept the score in their head whilst watching the video but scored the passes on paper after they finished.
-Participants could be asked 3 questions:
While you were doing the counting, did you notice anything unusual in the video? (If yes, they were asked more details).
Did you notice anything other than 6 players?
Did you see a gorilla/ a woman carrying an umbrella walking across the screen?
-Participants were then debriefed at the end of the study (aim).
What percentage of participants saw and missed the event?
How many people was data collected on and why?
Missed: 46%
Saw: 54%
- Data from 36 were omitted for:
Seeing a similar video before.
They had lost count.
They had made an incorrect count of passes.
Which condition were were participants most likely to see the unexpected event for each IV?
Were participants more likely to notice gorilla when focussing on the white or black team?
- Opaque because the video is clearer than transparent
- Easy task because their mind is less occupied so they had attention to look at other things.
- Woman with umbrella because this is a more usual event. There’s also a different shape of the umbrella that is more noticeable.
-Black shirt team participants were more likely to see the gorilla because black looks like the gorilla- they’re looking for people wearing black.
Conclusions
Inattentional blindness occurs in dynamic events that are sustained.
Ethics broken and upheld
Upheld:
Participants were debriefed
Participants consented to take part in the study
Confidentiality- their identities weren’t shared
Right to withdraw
Broken:
Informed consent and deception because participants thought they were just watching basketball players so weren’t told the true aim.
Protection from harm- frustrating/ embarrassing that they didn’t see gorilla/ umbrella
Internal and external reliability
Internal:
Controlled lab experiment: same actors, same location, 75 second video.
Replicable: repeated 228 times.
External:
Large sample of 228/192 participants
However there’s a much smaller number in each condition as there are 16 conditions.
