Simons and Chabris

Question 1

What is visual attention ?

Answer 1

People tend to believe what they see preserves richness of visual environment.

Question 2

What is change blindness ?

Answer 2

Situation where observer fails to notice large changes to objects from one view to the next (If change is not the centre of attention).

Question 3

What is inattentional blindness ?

Answer 3

Where popped fail to perceive unexpected object when attention is diverted even if unexpected object appears in the centre.

Question 4

What are the 2 methods for studying visual attention ?

Answer 4

-Static displays = picture
-Dynamic displays =. moving video that is more realistic.

Question 5

What did Neisser look at ?

Answer 5

“The Umbrella Woman” = where 48% noticed the woman with umbrella walking across a screen.

Question 6

Aim of S+C

Answer 6

To build on previous research by Neisser and investigate factors that may affect visual detection rates.

Question 7

Type of experiment in S+C

Answer 7

Lab experiment

Question 8

Experimental design in S+C

Answer 8

Independent measures.

Question 9

How many conditions were there in S+C ?

Answer 9

16 conditions

Question 10

IV’s of S+C

Answer 10

-Unexpected event = umbrella or gorilla
-Film = transparent or opaque
-Task = easy or hard
-Team followed = black or white

Question 11

DV of S+C

Answer 11

Number of pts who noticed umbrella woman or gorilla.

Question 12

Sample of S+C

Answer 12

228 undergraduate students from America.
Self-selected
Rewarded through candy food.
36 ruled out due to them already knowing about task. (192 remaining)
Further 12 took part in controlled observation.

Question 13

Materials of S+C

Answer 13

4 video tapes of 2 teams throwing basket ball.
Each tape lasted 75s
After 45 seconds unexpected event occurred lasting 5s.
Woman/ gorilla walked left to right

Question 14

Procedure of S+C

Answer 14

All tested individually
Observers old to watch white or black team and silently keep count of number of passes.
Had to write down count immediately
Surprise series of questions after to see if they saw unexpected event or had heard of experiment before.

Question 15

What was easy task in S+C ?

Answer 15

Number of passes made to attending team

Question 16

What was the hard task in S+C ?

Answer 16

Number of passes and Ariel passes made to the attended team.

Question 17

Ethics in S+C

Answer 17

Gave informed consent in advance and were debriefed at the end by replaying tape.

Question 18

Results of S+C

Answer 18

-54% noticed unexpected event.
-Umbrella was noticed more in opaque and easy.
-Black team noticed gorilla more than white team.
-Little difference between black and white in umbrella.
-No correlation between noticing and poor counting.

Question 19

Conclusions of S+C

Answer 19

Sustained inattention blindness for dynamic events.
It was affected by :
-Transparent display
-Difficulty of primary task.
-Observer was less likely to notice event if it was too dissimilar.
-No conscious perception without attention.