Gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events
Simons and Chabris reviewed evidence on change blindness and inattentional blindness and report a new study, based on classic divided-attention research, testing inattentional blindness for complex objects and events in dynamic scenes. Their abstract reports that noticing an unexpected object depended on its similarity to other objects in the display and on the difficulty of the primary task, and that its proximity to attended locations had no effect, which they read as a sign that observers attend to objects and events rather than positions.
Simons and Chabris reviewed evidence on change blindness and inattentional blindness and report a new study, based on classic divided-attention research, testing inattentional blindness for complex objects and events in dynamic scenes. Their abstract reports that noticing an unexpected object depended on its similarity to other objects in the display and on the difficulty of the primary task, and that its proximity to attended locations had no effect, which they read as a sign that observers attend to objects and events rather than positions.
Written from the abstract, journal record and Crossref, 2026-10-31.
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Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28(9), 1059-1074. doi:10.1068/p281059.