Simons and Chubris' study

Question 1

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 1

The failure to see a event/object in your field of vision because you are focussed on other elements

Question 2

What was the sample of Simon and Chabris’ study?

Answer 2

228 participants - undergraduates at Harvard university

Question 3

What rewards did the participants get for taking part in Simon and Chabris’

Answer 3

Some got no payment
some were given a candybar
some were given money

Question 4

What rewards did the participants get for taking part in Simon and Chabris’

Answer 4

Some got no payment
some were given a candybar
some were given money

Question 5

What was the general aim of Simon and Chabris’ study?

Answer 5

They wanted to confirm that inattentional blindness occurs in a realistic complex situation (i.e. one where the unexpected events last for 5 seconds or more, but is nonetheless unnoticed by observers)

Question 6

What are the four research questions of Simon and Chabris’ study?

Answer 6

Would the similarity of the unexpected event to the 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 taste to do increase the rate of inattentional blindness?
Would use of a more superimposition video give different findings from those obtained via Neisser’s ‘transparent’ video?

Question 7

What were the controls of Simon and Chabris’ study?

Answer 7

The videos: Lasted 75 seconds, same number of passes, same time span before unexpected event, same models
Standardised procedure

Question 8

What were the four independent variables of Simon and Chabris’ study?

Answer 8

Construction of the video: Transparent or opaque
What the participants focused on: Black team, white team
The difficulty of the task the participants were given to do: easy or difficult
The unexpected event that occured: Gorilla or umbrella woman

Question 9

What was the overall level of inattentional blindness of Simon and Chabris’ study?

Answer 9

46%

Question 10

In Simon and Chabris’ study, Were participants tested individually or in groups?

Answer 10

Individually

Question 11

In Simon and Chabris’ study, what instructions were participants given before viewing the clip?

Answer 11

watch team black/white and count the number of passes of the basketball

Question 12

In Simon and Chabris’ study, what three questions could participants be asked?

Answer 12

Did you notice anything unusual?
Did you notice anything other than the 6 players?
Did you see a gorilla/woman carrying an umbrella walking across the screen?

Question 13

In Simon and Chabris’ study, what happened to the questions if the participants mentioned the unexpected event at any point?

Answer 13

no more questions were asked

Question 14

Why were the results of 36 participants removed from Simon and Chabris’ study?

Answer 14

Various reasons including:
They had seen a similar video before
They had lost count
They had made an inaccurate count of passes

Question 15

What conclusions did Simons and Chabris draw?

Answer 15

The level of inattentional blindness depends on difficulty of primary task. Individually more likely to notice unexpected events if these events are visually similar to the events they are paying attention to. Objects can pass through the visual area are focused on and still not be ‘seen’ if they are not specifically being payed attention to

Question 16

What percentage of participants doing the easy task, looking at the white team in the opaque condition with the umbrella woman in Simon and Chabris’ study?

Answer 16

100%

Question 17

What were the lowest percentage categories for participants noticing the unexpected events?

Answer 17

8% for the gorilla transparent white team condition on both the hard and easy tasks.

Question 18

What ethical issues did Simon and Chabris break?

Answer 18

Deception as the participants weren’t told there was going to be a gorilla (very tenuous)

Question 19

Did Simon and Chabris’ study have internal reliability?

Answer 19

Yes, many parts were controlled but 36 participants did have to leave

Question 20

Did Simon and Chabris’ study have external reliability?

Answer 20

Yes as the sample was pretty big (228) even when 36 left (192) and it did show an effect.

Question 21

Did Simon and Chabris’ study have internal construct validity?

Answer 21

not really, Was fairly simplistic so participants may have guessed
Yes because there were many controls and it tested individuality

Question 22

Did Simon and Chabris’ study have external population validity?

Answer 22

was fairly large (228) but all undergraduate student

Question 23

Did Simon and Chabris’ study have external ecological validity?

Answer 23

it had people playing basketball which is a fairly common task, but it was a video rather than real life and a gorilla and umbrella woman would probably not be at a basketball game

Question 24

Was Simon and Chabris’ study ethnocentric?

Answer 24

yes, attentional blindness may be affected by upbringing in different cultures
no, principles should be universal

Question 25

How did the study by Simon and Chabris was related to the cognitive area?

Answer 25

It investigated attention which is a cognitive process. It also explains why we may not recall information that we see, but do not pay attention do

Question 26

How did the study by Simon and Chabris was related to the key theme of attention?

Answer 26

it Showed that our attention to unexpected stimuli can be quite poor, especially when we are carrying out a cognitively demanding task. We don’t always perceive things that pass through our visual field if we are attending to other visual information

Question 27

What are two similarities between Moray’s study and Simon and chabris’ study?

Answer 27

They both used lab experiments and involved uni students as participants

Question 28

What are two differences between Moray and Simon and Chabris’ study?

Answer 28

They looked at different types of attention
oray = auditory attention
Simon and Chabris = visual attention
Different levels of holism
Moray = they only looked at names and numbers
simon and Chabris = they looked at 16 conditions

Question 29

How has the study by Simon and Chabris changed our understanding of the key theme of attention?

Answer 29

The study extends the finding of Moray by showing that selective attention can affect us for visual as well as auditory attention

Question 30

How hasn’t the study by Simon and Chabris changed our understanding of the key theme of attention?

Answer 30

It doesn’t really explain why this inattentional effect occurs

Question 31

How has the study by Simon and Chabris changed our understanding of individual diversity?

Answer 31

It shows that some individual are more vulnerable to the efforts of selective attention than others (results nearly 50% of participants were able to see the unexpected)

Question 32

How hasn’t the study by Simon and Chabris changed our understanding of social diversity?

Answer 32

As both studies investigated university students it is likely to the participants in both were from similar social backgrounds

Question 33

How hasn’t the study by Simon and Chabris changed our understanding of cultural diversity?

Answer 33

The studies were also both conducted in English speaking western cultures

Question 34

How did Simon and Chabris’ study link to usefulness of research?

Answer 34

Attention could be used in many different fields, like teaching, lifeguards, sports officiates

Question 35

How did Simon and Chabris’ study link to holism?

Answer 35

It looked at multiple different variables - 16 conditions

Question 36

How did Simon and Chabris’ study link to reductionism?

Answer 36

it only looks at cognitive area - attention/inattentional blindness

Question 37

How did Simon and Chabris’ study link to freewill/determinist?

Answer 37

free-will = people got different percentages on the tests, as they choose to focus on different things Determinist = environmental determinism as the attention payer was influenced by the environment - level of blindness dictates what you can/can’t see

Question 38

How did Simon and Chabris’ study link to psychology as a science?

Answer 38

It was falsifiable, replicable and objective

Question 39

How did Simon and Chabris’ study link to nurture?

Answer 39

Were given rewards for taking part - operant conditioning