#2. Classic attention experiment (1‑minute video)

126 Comments

1. Gerard on December 19, 2007 at 8:46

   This is the most fun read­ing a blog I’ve had in ages. fire­fox crashed on two attempts so I did not even see the video!!

   
   
   
2. Alvaro on December 21, 2007 at 3:03

   Hel­lo every­one, great to see so much activ­i­ty! we are look­ing for sim­i­lar fun exper­i­ments to offer, giv­en the suc­cess of this one. 

   Ger­ard, the video is back up!

   
   
   
3. Michael on December 31, 2007 at 11:46

   I count­ed 31 hand­offs and I saw the goril­la. What does all of this mean and how can I use it? How do I devel­op a bet­ter brain?

   
   
   
4. Alvaro on December 31, 2007 at 5:02

   Hel­lo Michael, this is sim­ply an exper­i­ment on how per­cep­tion works. You may have seen in this thread that a num­ber of peo­ple did­n’t see the goril­la. The paper we link to explain it in much more detail , and its impli­ca­tions in dai­ly life-like miss­ing the big pic­ture when we are too focused on details.

   How to develpp a bet­ter brain? well, there are may places to start, but let me sug­gest our home page, http://www.sharpbrains.com. Every per­son comes from a dif­fer­ent place, and has dif­fer­ent pri­or­i­ties, so we can­not give you a “recipe” but offer you good qual­i­ty and com­pre­hen­sive information.

   And Hap­py 2008!

   
   
   
5. val on January 1, 2008 at 9:41

   I was aware of some image that briefly inter­fered with my abil­i­ty to con­cen­trate and count. My brain sort of shooed it away. When I watched again after read­ing the results, the human in a goril­la suit was clear as day. Food for thought…

   
   
   
6. Emily on January 8, 2008 at 12:11

   Wow:)
   Yehh Saw Goril­la :D
   Good Test :)
   I Saw About 29–33
   Its Hard :D
   x

   
   
   
7. keith on January 21, 2008 at 3:07

   Does no one make men­tion of the two very large S’s on the walls? I did not notice those the first time I saw the video either. :)

   I count­ed 31 or 32

   
   
   
8. Alvaro on January 21, 2008 at 5:27

   Great point, Keith…we need to con­tact Simons and Chabris to do some fol­low-up experiments :-)

   
   
   
9. KS on January 22, 2008 at 9:37

   I saw the Goril­la and count­ed 32–35. Where do I find the actu­al num­ber of passes ?

   
   
   
10. CR on January 23, 2008 at 3:04

    WAS IT A REAL GORRILA?

    
    
    
11. mira on January 23, 2008 at 2:04

    I saw the goril­la. Frist I looked at the bas­ket­balls and I tried to fol­low them, than I just relaxed and decid­ed to just count the times when I saw them in the air with­out fol­low­ing the stu­dents (when they have the ball in their hand).

    
    
    
12. Kaiti on January 28, 2008 at 12:09

    31 + goril­la? lol

    
    
    
13. stuart on February 19, 2008 at 3:17

    For those that want the num­ber, it seems eas­i­est to count each ‘team’ seper­ate­ly: white pass 14 times, black 19. I am very con­fi­dent on the white count, slight­ly less so on the black team because twice they pass the ball while all three are stand­ing behind each oth­er (which is prob­a­bly why so many see only 31 when hav­ing to track white at the same time)

    
    
    
14. stuart on February 19, 2008 at 3:25

    Btw, I think the exper­i­ment would work bet­ter on vis­i­tors when you don’t basi­cal­ly tele­graph what the exper­i­ment is about before get­ting peo­ple to do it themselves.

    
    
    
15. Trev on February 25, 2008 at 7:36

    I count­ed 32 passes.

    
    
    
16. Lisa on March 4, 2008 at 8:06

    I JUST GOT IT!!!
    Look close­ly and you’ll notice that all the peo­ple in white are only throw­ing the ball to the peo­ple in white. The peo­ple in black are only throw­ing it to the peo­ple in black. I count­ed 14 for the white team and 19 for the black team.… and yes I noticed the Gorilla

    
    
    
17. LD on March 15, 2008 at 8:37

    i did­n’t even see the basketballs.

    
    
    
18. Matt on March 17, 2008 at 7:00

    i count­ed 32>???

    
    
    
19. sriram on March 18, 2008 at 9:51

    ya i count­ed 26 but did not see gorilla

    
    
    
20. blau augen on March 23, 2008 at 11:17

    I got 32, that was fun and some­times they throw while some­on’s in the way O.o

    
    
    
21. blau augen on March 23, 2008 at 11:19

    Wait, why is every­one con­fused with the goril­la? Is that the hard part, because I seen him no prob­lem lol.

    
    
    
22. luckyno7 on March 26, 2008 at 11:35

    I count­ed an even 20. I got side­tracked. Any­way, If I’m wrong I blame it on that blast­ed goril­la, so there!

    
    
    
23. DannieGirl on March 27, 2008 at 11:15

    OK, i watched the video twice well 3 times.
    The first time i noticed the “goril­la”, i noticed the 2 big S’s on the wall, and i noticed that the peo­ple in white shirts pass­ing to white shirts, & black shirts pass­ing to the black shirts.
    I count­ed 29 pass­es the first time.
    after read­ing some com­ments like the oth­er per­son i decid­ed to count the “white shirt pass­es” and then the “black shirt pass­es”, that time i count­ed 34 pass­es in total.
    So like i said, i saw the goril­la, the S’s, the white shirts, and the black shirts, i think i saw 34 passes.
    Now, please tell me how many times the ball was passed for each col­or shirt and pass­es in total.

    Please =)‘
    Thank you

    
    
    
24. Gigi on March 31, 2008 at 1:29

    I count­ed 27 pass­es (but I nev­er played bas­ket­ball, so the whole thing was very con­fus­ing). I did not know about the goril­la until I read the arti­cle, and I was stunned! Con­sid­er myself pret­ty obser­vant. This is a great exper­i­ment. The num­ber of pass­es is irrel­e­vant, for all of you who still won­der! The point is that when you’re atten­tion is on some­thing spe­cif­ic, you fail to notice oth­er things. I’m not sure I believe the peo­ple who say they noticed the goril­la the first time — unless they weren’t real­ly count­ing the passes.

    
    
    
25. Alvaro on March 31, 2008 at 9:47

    Hel­lo Gigi, glad you enjoyed it. You got the point.

    Now, we all have our strong and weak points…there are in fact peo­ple who can notice the goril­la the first time, even while count­ing. Impres­sive, I know