← Giant Brain Candy
Giant Brain Candy: The Invisible Gorilla. Asked to count basketball passes in a short video, about half of viewers never noticed a person in a gorilla suit strolling right through the game. Source: Inattentional blindness.
Strong evidenceThe research
  1. Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst: Sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28(9), 1059–1074.

Journey 2 · Awareness

The Invisible Gorilla

Asked to count basketball passes in a short video, about half of viewers never noticed a person in a gorilla suit strolling right through the game.

Source: Inattentional blindness · Strong evidence

Share this card

XFacebookLinkedInPinterestWhatsAppThreadsEmail
Download the picture

Instagram or TikTok: download the picture and post it.

30 days of All-Access, free — every journey and every feature. No card.

Start free — 30 days of All-Access

More from Awareness

Giant Brain Candy: A Word That Quiets the Alarm. When people chose a word for the feeling on an emotional face, like ‘angry’ or ‘scared’, their amygdala, the brain’s alarm, responded less, and a prefrontal region grew more active. Source: Putting feelings into words.
Giant Brain Candy: Say It to the Spider. People afraid of spiders who put their fear into words beside a live tarantula showed a smaller bodily fear response a week later, facing a different spider in another setting, than those who reframed or distracted. Source: Naming fear during exposure.
Giant Brain Candy: Repeat It Till It Loses Its Sting. In one small study of eight people, saying a harsh word about yourself out loud, fast, for thirty seconds made it less believable and less upsetting than distraction or trying to control the thought. Source: Cognitive defusion.
All of Awareness’s Brain Candy, and every other journey’s →