[ExI] Selective attention test

Ben Zaiboc bbenzai at yahoo.com
Tue Jul 13 19:05:52 UTC 2010


John Clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> 
> Try to observe and count the correct number of times the
> people in white pass the basketball.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
> 

I'm afraid I don't see the point of this.

I guess I passed the selective attention test, getting the number of ball passes right and missing the gorilla.

Is the idea to demonstrate how well selective attention works?  Surely it's not surprising? It's a very useful trait.  Probably essential.

The odd thing about this test is that some people who pass it feel that somehow they've failed, because they didn't see the gorilla. But they didn't, they passed.

Maybe certain post-humans could go "... 5, 6, gorilla, 7, ..." and get it right, but I doubt many humans (not having seen the test before) could notice the gorilla without losing count.

Ben Zaiboc


      





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