I was really focused on counting the basketballs and I didn't realize when the gorilla passed the first time. Then, when I heard the question "did you see something unexpected?", and I watched the video one more time without counting the basketballs, I saw the gorilla. My reaction when I saw the gorilla was to ask myself why I didn't see it?, it's huge and obvious!
This experiment made me think about Singer's reading. Sometimes we don't see the obvious and big things we have right in front of us until someone open our eyes and show us the reality in a cruel or extremist way, as Singer's did. We get kind of blind being focused on specific things that we forget about the rest of the world, in the same way we forget that there are a lot of people outside waiting for our help, like those kids in Singer's reading. Probably this "blindness" we all suffer is an unconscious illness we don't want to discover, and consequently our mind prefers to live in denial.
The positive and interesting point is once I realized what was happening, I was more aware in the next experiment. Even though I knew what was the trick, I couldn't realize the changes in a couple of videos, which make me feel uncomfortable and I had the same reaction as in the gorilla experiment: "it was obvious, why I didn't see it?". However, It was fun and interesting to try to discover the tricks and then reveal them.
wow... i couldnt think of links with the singer at all...
ReplyDeletewell they say people only see what they like and dont see what they dont like.
by the way how many passes were there?
Hi, I don't think that kind of things are obvious. I feel in real life, most time we all are focused on doing something and getting our goals, most of us don't mind too much about the others in a fair competition for life.
ReplyDeleteSo don't be sad !
Hi Pamela,
ReplyDeleteInteresting comment! I wonder if Mark is saying that he didn't like the Singer therefore he couldn't see the connection? Anyway, good post and good comments. I agree with the second commentator, though, that it's not necessary to feel bad; hopefully, we can take something positive away from all of this material, both the serious and funny combined. One poster, I think it was Dong Wook, made a nice connection between the video and mulit-tasking. I think you would enjoy reading it, and perhaps an easy things to take a way from the video is the idea of slowing down, looking carefully, and being mindful in really positive ways.