Books Quote by Daniel Kahneman
““stimuli that normally attract attention. The most dramatic demonstration was offered by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in their book The Invisible Gorilla. They constructed a short film of two teams passing basketballs, one team wearing white shirts, the other wearing black. The viewers of the film are instructed to count the number of passes made by the white team, ignoring the black players. This task is difficult and completely absorbing. Halfway through the video, a woman wearing a gorilla suit appears, crosses the court, thumps her chest, and moves on. The gorilla is in view for 9 seconds. Many thousands of people have seen the video, and about half of them do not notice anything unusual. It is the counting task—and especially the instruction to ignore one of the teams—that causes the blindness. No one who watches the video without that task would miss the gorilla. Seeing and orienting are automatic””
About This Quote
Source Book: The Invisible Gorilla by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, 2009
Focused attention can cause us to miss obvious, unexpected events when we concentrate on a specific task.
In simple terms: Intense focus blinds us to other things.
Key Takeaway
Beware of tunnel vision.
Themes
attention
perception
cognitive bias
awareness
Mood
curious
analytical
cautious
Type
explanatory
educational
When to use this quote
- watching sports
- security monitoring
- driving
- research observations
- learning environments
Key Concepts
selective attention
inattentional blindness
Questions to Reflect On
- How does task focus affect safety?
- Can we train to notice peripheral events?
A Different Perspective
If the task is too demanding, we may miss critical information.
