Simon And Chabris Flashcards
Background of Simon and chabris (1999) study on visual inattention
Visual attention and in attention blindness
Visual attention (selective looking) refers to the fact that even though that I record all visual experience, we do not pay attention to everything
Change blind = failing to notice large changes from one view to the next.
In intentional blindness = failing to notice an unexpected object, if attention is diverted
Aims of Simon and chabris (1999) study on visual inattention
To investigate factors affecting visual detection rates
-Visual similarity of unexpected, and attended object
-Task difficulty
-Super imposed or live version of a display
-Nature of the unusual event
Design method of Simon and chabris (1999) study on visual inattention
Lab experiment, independent measure design with, 16 conditions
Iv 1-Unexpected event was an umbrella, woman or gorilla
IV 2-film was transparent or opaque
IV 3-task was easy or hard
IV 4-observer followed black or white team
DVX percentage of observers, noticing unexpected event.
Sample of Simon and chabris (1999) study on visual inattention
Self-selected sample of, 228, mainly American undergraduates final analysis include 192 observers(36 were ruled out as they knew about in intentional blindness already)
Materials/apparatus of Simon and chabris (1999) study on visual inattention
4 videotapes of two teams of three players (dressed in black or white) the rowing, a basketball lasting 75 seconds.
After 44 to 48 seconds and unexpected event, lasting five seconds occurred, e.g. person holding umbrella, wearing a gorilla costume walked from left to right .
Procedure of Simon and chabris (1999) study on visual inattention
Participants took part and only one condition and were tested individually
Participants watched, black or white team
Participants counted silently, the number of passes (easy) or number of bounce and aerial passes (hard) made by the attended team.
Participants wrote down their count scores.
Participants were asked surprised questions about the unexpected event e.g. did you notice anything unusual on the video did you notice anything other than a six players did you see anyone else? Did you see a gorilla/woman carrying an umbrella walk across the screen?
Participants, who said yes, we asked for details
Participants who said they knew of intentional blindness were discarded
Participants gave informed, consent and words debriefed.
Results of Simon and chabris (1999) study on visual inattention
The key result is that 54% of participants noticed the unexpected event 46% did not notice it.
Results for the 4 IVS
-Umbrella woman was noticed more than the gorilla (65% versus 44%) p< 0.004
-unexpected event was noticed more in opaque than transparent condition (67% versus 42% ) p<0.001
-event was noticed more in the easy rather than hard condition 64% versus 45% p<0.009
-in gorilla, condition participants watching the black team noticed it more than white team 58% versus 27% P<0. 002
-Umbrella condition there was little difference between black and white teams (62% versus 69% p<0.519
Other results
The standard deviations of the hard and easy condition was 6.77 and 2.71 showing the hard condition was more difficult
-inaccurate accounting was not a factor(no significant correlation between noticing and poor counting r= 15
Conclusions of Simon and chabris (1999) study on visual inattention
People are less likely to notice unexpected events if they are usually dissimilar to attentive events
An unexpected object can be undetected, even when it passes through the area of attentional focus in the eye (fovea)
This shows there is no conscious perception without attention 
Research method and techniques
+ lab conditions enable high control of extremely variables e.g. all the videos were the same length 75 seconds this means that the experimental conditions were carefully standardised.
- lab experiment may create demand characteristics, however, one factor that was controlled, was excluding data from observers, who knew of intentional Blindness as this would have affected their behaviour
Validity
-it is often not the lab setting that lowest validity, but the task, Simon and Shabris‘s task of watching a filmed event is rather contrived
+ however, research is overcome such issues by conducting further, possibly less controlled research in more natural settings or with more natural tasks
Reliability
+ highly standardised procedures were used e.g. the same four questions were asked of observers about the unexpected event. The research is found that observers answered consistently across all questions. This suggested that reliability was high.
Sampling bias
+ the final sample for analysis of 192 observers can be considered large. This can be seen as representative of the main target population (university undergraduates.)
-University of undergraduates may have higher cognitive abilities and perform better and attention tasks, so the sample may not be representative of everyone. Additionally, as they were self selected, they may have tried harder on the task than other people.
Types of data
Quantitative data, the percentages of observers, noticing the unexpected event in the 16th conditions. This makes it easier for example to compare the umbrella women with a gorilla condition.(65% versus 44%.) This also allows inferential statistics to determine if the results are meaningful e.g. Brenna women versus gorilla was highly significant at p<0.004
Ethical considerations
+ observers gave informed consent, and would debriefed afterwards, including having the tape repaid if they wished
Ethnocentrism
-We might not expect the brain processes involved in attention to be affected by culture, but research suggest otherwise children from individualist cultures, learn to interpret two dimensional films (similar to those used in the study) as three dimensional, but this is not true for children from collectivist cultures. This suggest that Simon and chabris results may only be relevant to certain cultures
