Gorillas in our Mists

One of the most dramatic and entertaining examples of how small adjustments in our attention can include or exclude huge chunks of our reality is demonstrated in the link below. When we connect the dots and realize that our beliefs are actually mechanisms for tweaking what we attend to, some interesting implications surface.

Professor Simons, at the University of Illinois, set up an experimental film where 6 people were passing two basketballs around. 3 are dressed in black t-shirts and 3 in white. The observers' role in the experiment was to watch the film and count the total times both basketballs were passed.

With their attention focused in such a way, similar to the way belief focuses what we observe in our experience, the majority of people missed the fact (and were absolutely shocked to discover later) that during the 25 second film a man in a gorilla suit had sauntered into the middle of the game and pounded his chest then slowly walked off camera. Most people did not even see the gorilla. How strange is that?

Of course, now I've spoiled the experiment for you, but you can see the actual film used in the experiment here and try it on your friends with the proper setup. Amazing how we can miss the obvious if we're looking for something else, no?

Warning, this is fairly large (7.5MB and uses Java on your browser) so best to try it with broadband or dsl. Enjoy

The Experiment