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Psychological research on inattentional blindness tries to understand why we do not remember everything we see. Psychologists generally assume that we must pay attention to what we see for it to enter our long-term memory.
Inattentional blindness is when someone fails to notice a stimulus because they are not paying attention. An example of inattentional blindness is looking at a map while driving and not noticing an animal in front of the car. Similar concepts of psychology as inattentional blindness include:
Unilateral hemispatial neglect typically affects one hemisphere of the brain and causes the person not to perceive things in the visual field opposite the damaged area.
In a study by Simons and Levin (1998), an experimenter started a conversation with a pedestrian. Halfway through, some workers intervened, and a confederate swapped places with the original experimenter. Only half of the participants noticed this switch.
The brain has a contralateral relationship, meaning that the right hemisphere processes things we see in the left visual field. Therefore, the left hemisphere processes things seen in the right visual field. Unilateral hemispatial neglect is a neurological symptom of physical trauma to the brain or a symptom following a stroke.
Simon and Chabris’ research aimed to complement Moray’s (1959) research. Moray’s research focused on understanding auditory attention. Simon and Chabris, on the other hand, investigated visual attention. The research goal was to measure the extent of inattentional blindness under different conditions when we watch dynamic video clips. The research explains why we do not always remember the things we see.
The sample included 228 participants, predominantly undergraduate students who volunteered to participate in the experiment. The design was a lab experiment that used independent measures design. The independent variables were:
Two types of video clips were shown: transparent and opaque. In the opaque condition, the unexpected clip was shown clearly, while in the transparent condition, the visibility of the unexpected event was less clear. The two levels of the IV participants were tested on were:
The dependent variable was the number of participants (in %) who noticed the unexpected event (the ‘umbrella woman’/gorilla). First, researchers obtained informed consent from participants. Participants received standardised instructions. The researchers read them to the participants to ensure everyone receives the same instructions. This is to reduce external factors affecting the validity of the results. This also ensures the study is replicable and consistent (may infer internal reliability).
Standardised instructions are usually written instructions from the researchers.
Then, participants were shown four video clips in which three people from each team played basketball. The unexpected event occurred halfway through the video clips (woman with umbrella or woman in the gorilla costume). After the video clips, participants had to write down how many passes they counted and fill out a questionnaire. If at any point, participants indicated they had noticed the unexpected event, the remaining questions were skipped.
The questionnaire included the following questions:
Some participants had to be excluded, so the remaining data was from 192 participants. 54% noticed the unexpected event, and 46% did not.
The table shows the percentages of participants who noticed the umbrella woman/gorilla in the white/black conditions.
| Gorilla | Umbrella-woman | |
| White team | 27% | 69% |
| Black team | 58% | 62% |
There was hardly any difference between the white and the black condition when the umbrella woman was shown in the video clip.
The researchers concluded that the results confirm people are inattentive when observing dynamic events. They also found that task difficulty influences the extent of inattentional blindness. The results demonstrate that people perceive things more with similar basic characteristics (in this study, colour). The gorilla was black, and participants perceived it more when they observed the black team. The results contradict the traditional view that people perceive things that stand out in visual search tasks.
The study by Simon and Chabris (1999) added to previous research on attention. The study advanced psychological research by identifying the factors involved in inattentional blindness. This has practical applications in real life, such as showing the importance of focusing on a specific task. Apart from practical applications, some other strengths and weaknesses should be considered when understanding the results.
In terms of driving, the study shows that the following factors can cause/influence inattentional blindness:
The study was standardised, therefore it has internal consistency (internal reliability). In addition, researchers can easily replicate the study. This means other researchers can determine and measure the reliability of the results. A large sample was used, so the results can be generalised to the population as a whole
There are limitations, however, because the sample consisted mainly of university students. The study did not raise any ethical issues. Since the experiment was conducted in a controlled environment, there is less likelihood of extraneous or confounding variables affecting the validity of the results.
The study had low ecological validity because the experiment was conducted in an artificial laboratory environment. This may influence the participants’ behaviour and reduce the validity of the results. The study also cannot find explanations for cause and effect. Research shows that many factors such as task difficulty and stimulus visibility are involved in inattention bias. However, research cannot prove whether these factors are the cause or an effect of inattentional blindness.
Inattentional blindness is when someone fails to notice a stimulus because they are not paying attention.
Inattentional blindness prevents our visual system from processing all the stimuli seen.
A way to prevent inattentional blindness is by concentrating on a task and not getting distracted by others.
The cause of inattentional blindness is not paying attention to stimuli.
Inattentional blindness generally occurs because an individual is distracted and not paying attention or is so fixated on a task that they miss other visual information.
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