Follow the bouncing ball

[wispfox]

[posted by jasra...]

Go to the following link, and try to keep count of how many times the basketball is passed between the white-shirted players. Link.


Did you notice the gorilla? If not, go watch it again.

Isn't inattentional blindness (third blue bar) fun?

Oh, I love Scientific American Mind. Now if only some of the other really fascinating articles from this month were available for free.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

PS: it's fun to hack the brain that way; but it also causes major vehicle accidents (think about the ball-passers as cars, and the gorilla as a motorcycle, pedestrian, ...or, in some famous cases, a FREIGHT TRAIN).

[docorion.livejournal.com]

My first reaction (before watching the video) was "I wonder if this is the elephant trick", because I first heard of this being done with an elephant walking through the scene. It is neat, though.

[lediva.livejournal.com]

2004 IgNobel in psychology :)

http://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html

[ian-gunn.livejournal.com]

*head smack* No, no I did not. I really should read that magazine. *sigh* I hardly ever finish their main magazine before the next one arives anymore.

[brynndragon.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I knew what was going on before I even clicked on the link (or the LJ-cut), so I didn't miss anything. Cause that's the reason so many bikers get dead. . .

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

I know what this is going to be without even watching it!! 8-)

Impossible for me to know if I'd notice it.

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

I saw the same thing last Arisia when Michael Flynn showed it alongside one of his popular "how-to-lie-with-statistics" talks. As one who normally prides himself on exceptional situational awareness, this was a very sobering experience. I literally did not see the gorilla until Mike showed the film a second time...

[yulecat.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, I *did* notice the gorilla. But it wasn't until most of the way through the video. And only then, when my were drawn right over it by one of the ball passes.

Agreed on the biker thing. No need to say more on that.

A friend of mine tells a story where he was driving along, minding his own business, on a road he drove a lot, and then there was this boulder in the middle of the road. It wasn't around a blind corner or anything - it was clearly visible for quite a few seconds before he got to it. And yet, because the last thing he ever expected to see was a boulder the size of a Volkswagen in the middle of the road, his brain just couldn't process it. It was only at the last possible second that he managed to swerve around it, despite having lots and lots of warning.