The Limits of Human Awareness

In 1999 psychologist Daniel Simmons conducted an experiment in which people watched a video with six volunteers divided into teams with black or white shirts. Viewers were asked to count the number of times the white team passed their ball, while ignoring the team in black shirts. Most of the volunteers counted the number of passes with no problem. What they did have trouble with was noticing the person in the gorilla suit who strolled to the center of the frame, stopped to beat his chest, an...