Inattentional Blindness and the Invisible Gorilla Experiment

The concept of inattentional blindness is exemplified through the well-known Invisible Gorilla experiment, where individuals focus on counting basketball passes and fail to notice a person in a gorilla suit. This phenomenon reveals that people often miss significant details when their attention is directed elsewhere, leading to a false sense of awareness about their surroundings. The experiment serves as a foundation for understanding how selective attention operates in daily life, suggesting that our perception is limited by what we choose to focus on. The researchers, Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris, leverage this insight to discuss broader implications for cognitive psychology and everyday decision-making.