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Core Studies: Cognitive Area

Simons and Chabris (1999) visual inattention: results, conclusions and evaluation

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 02

Overview

Recall questions on Simons and Chabris's findings on noticing rates, video type, the unexpected events, task difficulty and similarity to the attended team, their conclusions and applications to driving and eyewitnesses, and the evaluation of design, sample, ecological validity and ethics.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Evaluation

Give one criticism of the task's ecological validity.

Numbers

What proportion of observers noticed the unexpected event?

Key term

Which unexpected event was noticed more often?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What proportion of observers noticed the unexpected event?

    Model answer

    Overall 54% of observers noticed the unexpected event, meaning 46% failed to see something in full view.

  2. 2

    How did noticing rates differ between the opaque and transparent videos?

    Model answer

    About 67% noticed the unexpected event in the opaque videos, compared with about 42% in the transparent ones.

  3. 3

    Which unexpected event was noticed more often?

    Model answer

    The woman with the umbrella was noticed by about 65% of observers, compared with about 44% for the gorilla.

  4. 4

    What effect did task difficulty have?

    Model answer

    Noticing was substantially lower in the hard two-count task than in the easy single-count task, showing that the more attention the main task demands, the less likely an unexpected object is to be seen.

  5. 5

    Why was the gorilla noticed more by observers attending to the black-shirted team?

    Model answer

    Because the gorilla suit was black and so resembled the players they were monitoring, making it more likely to be selected for attention.

  6. 6

    What did Simons and Chabris conclude?

    Model answer

    People do not consciously perceive objects they are not attending to, however visible or unusual, and noticing depends on the attentional load of the task and on how far the object resembles what is being attended to.

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