People focusing intently on one thing can be not only blind but also deaf to other, glaringly obvious events, a study shows.
In a famous psychology experiment, video watchers counting basketball players' passes failed to notice someone wearing a gorilla suit who strode through the scene, beat his chest and moved on.
In the recent audio version, 45 people listened to a stereo recording of two men and two women independently discussing plans for a party. Half the participants were told to listen closely to the men's conversation, half to the women's.
Midway through, a man moved through the audio landscape saying "I'm a gorilla. I'm a gorilla," for 19 seconds, before exiting. Afterward, when asked if they heard anything odd, 90% of the participants listening to the male voices mentioned the gorilla-man—but only 30% of the participants focusing on the female voices did.
"Gorillas We Have Missed: Sustained Inattentional Deafness for Dynamic Events," Polly Dalton and Nick Fraenkel, Cognition (forthcoming)
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