Inattentional Blindness
The Gorilla in the room: how focus creates filters.
🧐 What do you see?▼
This is an interactive task. You are asked to count the number of times theblue balls bounce off the top or bottom edges.
After the task, you will be asked if you noticed anything unusual. Most people who are focusing hard on the counting task completely miss the Gorillathat walks across the stage.
🧠 Why this works▼
The brain has a limited capacity for processing visual information. To prevent overload, it uses Selective Attention to filter out irrelevant data.
If an object is not part of the current "task-set" (e.g., counting blue things), the brain may never promote it to conscious awareness, even if it is clearly visible to the eyes.
🧪 Try variations▼
Speed: At higher speeds, the counting task becomes much more difficult. Research shows that the "higher the cognitive load," the more likely you are to miss the distractor.
❓ FAQ▼
Why did I see it?
If you've heard of the original "Invisible Gorilla" experiment by Simons & Chabris (1999), you were likely looking for it! Expectation is the enemy of inattentional blindness.