Crooked Timber: What we don't notice... recounts an interesting experiment in perceptual framing and focus, where people who are shown a film and told to focus on a particular task (counting the number of times a team passes the basketball) don't notice something really obvious if unrelated to the task (a woman in a gorilla suit walking slowly through the players, stopping, thumping her chest, and moving on).
More evidence of just how much processing of our perception goes on beneath the level of consciousness, and the great extent to which conscious intention directs and shapes that processing.
Posted by joshua at May 6, 2004 08:15 PM