People Miss What Goes Around – Especially When Concentrating on a Certain Thing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY

Description of Experiment

a. In a short video, 3 people with White shirt and 3 people with Black shirts pass a basketball between them. The viewer is requested to count how many times the players wearing White Pass the ball.

b. A man dressed as a gorilla pass through them

c. About half of the viewers (who don’t know the experiment) miss the gorilla

d. From those knowing the experiment – who are looking for a gorilla – many miss the color change of the curtain behind the players and that one of the Black players is leaving the game in the middle.

Conclusions

People miss a lot of what is going on around them when focusing in one particular thing.

Perhaps this is one of the explanations why bonuses worsen performance different settings – bonuses narrow people’s mind and focus them on one specific thing.