SIMONS AND CHABRIS 1999 VISUAL INATTENTION Area Cognitive

SIMONS AND CHABRIS (1999) ‘VISUAL INATTENTION’ Area: Cognitive Area Theme: Attention

Background to the study Moray looks at auditory attention whereas Simons & Chabris looks at visual attention Simon & Chabris’ study was conducted 40 years after Moray’s study. Even at this time, we knew to detect changes which occur around us our attention is required Watch the video and see how attentive you are https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=ub. NF 9 QNEQLA You could blame the angle of the camera rather than your attention for a poor score. Watch the next video and see how sharp your attention is https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=U 1 sa. Qo. MRD 8 A

Background to the study Moray’s study looked at an individuals ability to focus on one stimuli, whilst ignoring another stimuli Other researchers developed on this and looked at an individuals ability to visually focus on one stimuli and ignore another stimuli. They were interested to see if the individual could detect changes is the ignored stimuli. Consider where you are right now. You are exposed to a range of visual stimuli (Technology, furniture, books, people etc). Previous research wondered if you could focus solely on one visual stimuli (this Power. Point for example), and whilst ignoring everything that happens around you would you be able to tell if any visual changes occurred (For example, someone entered or left the room? ) This links back to the question I asked you in the last lesson - are you someone who can read a book in a busy, noisy environment?

Key terms Inattentional blindness occurs when attention is diverted to an object or task and observers often fail to perceive an unexpected object, even if it occurs at the point of fixation. If you were unable to notice all of the changes which happened in the first video (because your attention was on the people for example) you would have experience inattentional blindness Change blindness is where individuals do not detect large changes to objects and scenes from one view to the next. If you were unable to notice all of the changes that happened to the street in the second video you watched at the beginning of the lesson, you would have change blindness

Aim of the study Simon & Chabris aimed to test if inattentional blindness occurs in a realistic, complex situation. Watch the video below to see Simon & Chabris’ experiment: https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=v. JG 698 U 2 Mvo Do you think the situation is realistic? Explain your reasoning Do you think the situation is complex? Explain your reasoning

• Laboratory experiment Methodology • Independent Measures Design (IMD) • Is this where one group of participants complete two tasks? • Or when two groups of participants complete one task? • 228 participants • Volunteer sample • What can we infer about the type of person who volunteers for studies? • Mostly students • What can we infer about the participants? Age? Intelligence? Socioeconomic status? • All participants were referred to as ‘observers’ • Given large candy bar or small fee for participation • How might this influence the participants right to withdraw? • 36 participants data was removed. This led to 16 groups of 12 individuals • This means that 12 participants took part per condition

Methodology continued Each participant was shown one of four videos. Each video… • Lasted 75 seconds long • Showed two teams of three players • One team wearing all white shirts • One team wearing all black shirts • Each team passed around an orange basket ball in a standardised order • Players also dribbled and made various movements

Methodology continued After 44 -48 seconds of action, an unexpected event occurred for 5 seconds • In the umbrella condition, a tall woman holding an open umbrella walked from one side of the action to the other (left to right) • In the gorilla condition, a shorter woman wearing a full body gorilla costume walked through the action in the same way • In both conditions, all players continued to play as normal, before, during and after. Look at the specificity of the procedure – what does this mean in terms of (a) control (b) standardisation (c) replicability

Methodology continued Independent variables (IVs) were the condition the participant took part in: • Transparent umbrella • Opaque umbrella • Transparent gorilla • Opaque gorilla Two of the conditions are described as transparent (see-through). In this condition – it is only the unexpected event which is transparent (umbrella woman and gorilla) not all individuals. Two are described as opaque (opposite of transparent). In this condition, all individuals (including the unexpected event) are the same level of visibility. In this condition, the unexpected event would be considered more visible than the previous condition.

Transparent This is to show you what transparent and opaque look like. In the top two boxes, you will see that the umbrella woman and gorilla are seethrough. It is important to note that it was only the unexpected event that is transparent – all individuals are not see through (like in the bottom two boxes). The bottom two boxes clearly visualise the opaque condition. Opaque

Methodology continued Within each condition (IV) there were four task conditions: Transparent umbrella There were four task conditions: White t-shirt & easy task 1. 2. 3. 4. White t-shirt/Easy task White t-shirt/Hard task Black t-shirt/Easy task Black t-shirt/Hard task Therefore 16 conditions (see table which illustrates all 16 conditions) Opaque umbrella Transparent gorilla Opaque gorilla White t-shirt & hard task Black t-shirt & easy task Black t-shirt and hard task The DV was the number of people who noticed the unexpected event (umbrella woman or gorilla)

Procedure • Participants were individually tested and each gave informed consent • Participants were told they would be watching two teams of three players passing basket balls (like the video you watched at the start of the lesson). They were instructed to pay attention to the team wearing white or the team wearing black. The participants were asked to count the number of passes (easy condition) or the number of bounce passes made (hard condition) • Following this task participants were asked some additional questions - Did you notice anything unusual in the video? Did you notice anything other than the six players? Did you see a gorilla/woman carrying an umbrella walk across the screen? • Do you think it is a good idea for the researcher to ask that last question? What might this lead to?

Procedure • Further details were asked for if they answered yes. They were also asked if they had taken part in a similar study or had heard of this phenomenon; if this was the case their results were removed. • Evaluate the removal of participants if they have taken part in or heard of phenomenon • Debriefing then took place.

Results Simons & Chabris found: • 54% of participants noticed the unexpected event and 46% did not • What does this suggest about inattentional blindness? • 67% of participants noticed the unexpected event in the opaque condition, compared to only 42% in the transparent condition. • What does this suggest about inattentional blindness? • More participants noticed the unexpected event in the easy condition compared to the hard condition – 64% vs 45%. • What does this suggest about inattentional blindness? REMINDER: Inattentional blindness occurs when attention is diverted to another object or task and observers often fail to perceive an unexpected object, even if it occurs at the point of fixation.

Results Simons & Chabris found: • 54% of participants noticed the unexpected event and 46% did not • What does this suggest about inattentional blindness? • That inattentional blindness was not found as more people noticed the unexpected event than those who did not. This is not a significant difference. • 67% of participants noticed the unexpected event in the opaque condition, compared to only 42% in the transparent condition. • What does this suggest about inattentional blindness? • That the more visible the unexpected event is, the more likely it is of being noticed • More participants noticed the unexpected event in the easy condition compared to the hard condition – 64% vs 45%. • What does this suggest about inattentional blindness? • That task difficulty influences an individuals ability to perceive an unexpected event. The easier the task, the more likely they are to notice. The harder the task, the less likely they are to notice.

Results • While the effect of task difficulty was greater in the transparent condition, the Umbrella Woman was noticed more often than the Gorilla overall (65% versus 44%). • What does this suggest about inattentional blindness? • Results from the controlled observation were that only 50% noticed the event (roughly the same as the percentage that noticed the normal Opaque/Gorilla walking event (42%) under the same task conditions). • What does this suggest about inattentional blindness?

Results • While the effect of task difficulty was greater in the transparent condition, the Umbrella Woman was noticed more often than the Gorilla overall (65% versus 44%). • What does this suggest about inattentional blindness? • That the more realistic the unexpected object, the more likely it will be seen. The more bizarre and unexpected the unexpected object is, the less likely it will be seen. • Results from the controlled observation were that only 50% noticed the event (roughly the same as the percentage that noticed the normal Opaque/Gorilla walking event (42%) under the same task conditions). • What does this suggest about inattentional blindness? • Limited evidence for inattentional blindness –half of the participants noticed it, half did not

Conclusions • Individuals do have inattentional blindness for dynamic events. • Individuals will often fail to notice a seemingly obvious, but unexpected event if they are engaged in another monitoring task. • The extent of inattentional blindness is dependent on the difficulty of the primary task. • We are more likely to notice unexpected events if these events are visually similar to the events we are paying attention to. • Without attention we have no conscious perception – objects can pass through the spatial extent of attentional focus, but still not be ‘seen’ if they are not attended to.

Evaluation Research method • All studies were conducted where? • Strengths: (a) what level of control is there? (b) What kind of relationship does that allow for? • Weaknesses: (a) What can you assume about behaviours if the environment is false? (b) Are the behaviours likely to be similar to real life? (c) What type of validity does the study lack? (d) is the task something that people do in real life? • Independent measures design was used (a) what are the strengths of this? (b) what are the weaknesses of this? Type of data • What type of data was collected? qualitative or quantitative? Or both? (a) What does this data tell us? (b) What does it allow us to do? (c) What are the limitations about this type of data?

Evaluation Ethical considerations • Go through the ethical guidelines – identify what were upheld and what were broken • Be mindful of the incentive provided to take part and the influence this has Validity • Internal validity – the aim of Simon & Chabris’ study is to measure inattentional blindness. Does the study really do this? Or do other factors influence? Reliability • Internal reliability – is the study highly controlled and standardised? If yes, the study has IR. If no, then it does not.

Sampling bias Evaluation • Most of the participants were undergraduate students – what can we assume about them? • The gender breakdown was not identified – why would this be? What assumptions can be made? • All participants volunteered to take part – what does this mean about the type of person the participants are? • All participants were given an incentive – is that important for the type of person who participates? Practical applications • Who in the real world would benefit from knowing that individuals will often fail to notice a seemingly obvious, but unexpected event if they are engaged in another monitoring task? Ethnocentrism • The study was conducted in England. What does this mean in terms of cultural bias?

Exam questions In your workbooks, there are 13 exam questions for you to work through. Pay attention when questions say ‘in this study’. For these responses, you must be specific to the study. For example, when evaluating the use of collecting quantitative data you cannot give a generic response. You must be specific – what is the strength of Simons & Chabris collecting that type of data? How does it specifically benefit their study? Advice on structure for questions 10 -13 are on the next two slides

Exam questions Question 10: Explain how the Simons & Chabris study links to the area it falls under [3 marks] Define the area: Briefly explain the study: State the obvious link between the two: Question 11: Explain how the Simons & Chabris study links to the area it falls under [3 marks] State theme: Briefly explain the study: State the obvious link between the two:

Exam questions Question 12: Outline one similarity of the Simons & Chabris study and the study by Moray [3 marks] Question 13: Outline one difference of the Simons & Chabris study and the study by Moray [3 marks] Structure: State comparison point – remember to say it is a similarity/difference. For example, “One similarity between Simon & Chabris’ study and Moray’s study is the type of data gathered” (1 mark) You should then explain the comparison point in relation to each study. Be specific and detailed here. For example, “In Moray’s study the researcher collected quantitative data in terms of whether the participant recalled information from the rejected message or not (yes or no). In Simon & Chabris’ study, the researchers collected quantitative data too. This was in terms of whether the participants noticed the unexpected event or not (yes or no). ” (2 marks) Ideas for comparison: • Sample • Sampling method • Experimental design • Experimental method • Type of data gathered • Ecological validity • Internal reliability • Mundane realism • Link to debates