Inattentional blindness facts for kids
Inattentional blindness, also called perceptual blindness, is when you don't notice something right in front of you. This happens because your brain is focused on something else. It's like your mind has a limited amount of attention.
When your attention is busy, your brain might miss other things. Even if something is very obvious, you might not see it. This is because your brain can only process so much information at one time.
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What Is Inattentional Blindness?
Inattentional blindness means you miss things because your attention is elsewhere. It shows how much our attention affects what we see. Our brains are always choosing what to focus on. They cannot pay attention to everything at once.
This idea is closely related to change blindness. Change blindness is when you don't notice changes in a scene. Inattentional blindness is about not seeing something new or unexpected. Both show that our vision is not like a camera. We only truly "see" what our brain decides to focus on.
Famous Experiments on Inattentional Blindness
The term inattentional blindness was first used by Arien Mack and Irvin Rock in 1992. Irvin Rock later wrote a book about it in 1998.
The Gorilla Experiment
One of the most famous studies about this is the "gorilla experiment." In this study, people watched a short video. The video showed two teams, one in black shirts and one in white shirts. They were passing a basketball.
The people watching were told to count the passes made by one team. Or they had to count bounce passes versus air passes. While they were counting, something unusual happened in the video.
In different versions of the video, a woman walked through the scene. Sometimes she carried an umbrella. Other times, she wore a full gorilla suit. In one version, the person in the gorilla suit even stopped. They faced the camera and pounded their chest. Then they walked away.
What People Saw
After watching the video, people were asked if they saw anything strange. About half of the people did not see the gorilla at all! This happened even though the gorilla was very clear. It was right in the middle of the screen.
This experiment shows something important. People often think they will automatically notice important things. But this is not always true. Our attention strongly controls what we perceive. What we see is much more about what we focus on than what is just "there."
See also
- Attention
- Change blindness
- Cognitive bias
- Selective attention
