Understanding Inattentional Blindness in Perception

Medium Psychology Perception And Cognition

During a cognitive psychology class, students learned about the phenomenon known as inattentional blindness, which occurs when an individual fails to notice a fully visible but unexpected object because their attention is engaged elsewhere. To illustrate this point, the instructor shows a video where participants are asked to count the number of basketball passes made by a team wearing white shirts while a person in a gorilla suit walks through the scene. Afterwards, many students report failing to notice the gorilla. This example highlights how our mental processes can limit perception.

Which of the following statements best explains why participants may not notice the gorilla in the described experiment?

The participants' prior experiences influenced their ability to acknowledge unexpected stimuli.

Attention is a limited resource, and focusing on one task can inhibit the processing of other stimuli.

Participants were not familiar with the concept of cognitive load, which affected their performance.

The presence of the gorilla was inherently distracting and should have drawn attention regardless of the task.

Hint

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