By Daniel Simons, on March 22nd, 2011
A wonderful video of Richard Feynman explaining scientific discovery by analogy to figuring out the rules of […]
By Daniel Simons, on February 28th, 2011
Another personal story from a reader about […]
By Daniel Simons, on November 16th, 2010
You might think you remember how you heard about the attacks on September 11, 2001, but you might well be wrong. A reader sent a remarkable example of memory distortion for a much earlier experience which illustrates how easily memories can […]
By The Invisible Gorilla, on November 5th, 2010
A recent spate of crimes by people in gorilla suits — not a good […]
By Daniel Simons, on October 18th, 2010
Thank you to everyone who submitted a comment or sent me email describing your own ‘invisible gorilla’ experiences. In addition to the many great comments on
By Daniel Simons, on October 12th, 2010
I’ve gotten a number of great examples of “invisible gorillas” by email and in comments on my earlier post. Please continue sending in your personal examples. I’m looking for any examples in which your intuitions about your own mind were wrong, ideally in dramatic fashion. The don’t need to be cases in […]
By Daniel Simons, on October 5th, 2010
Have you ever failed to notice an “invisible gorilla” in your daily life? Perhaps you were in a car accident and never saw the other car. Maybe you were in a bicycle or motorcycle accident in which a car driver never saw you coming. Or, maybe you missed an obvious business opportunity […]
By The Invisible Gorilla, on September 7th, 2010
Apparently Dodge took some heat from PETA for a car advertisement in which they dressed a chimp as Evel Knievel and had her press a plunger to release an explosion of confetti (read about it here).
Here’s the original:
In response to the criticism, Dodge edited the ad to make the chimp invisible without changing […]
By Daniel Simons, on June 22nd, 2010
This article reports a tragic accident that happened on Sunday. A bicyclist was hit by a car and killed. Unfortunately, such accidents are far too common, and this particular example typifies how inattentional blindness operates in the real world.
Most people believe that unexpected or unusual events draw attention, perhaps even more […]
By Daniel Simons, on June 14th, 2010
Huffington Post has a cool photo gallery of faces appearing in embedded objects. This tendency to see patterns, especially faces, is something we are particularly good at doing. It’s also the basis for this wonderful American Express advertisement:
Unfortunately, our pattern detection mechanisms can be overly zealous at times, leading us to see patterns […]
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