Free Response

When people devote their attention to a particular area or aspect of their visual world, they tend not to notice unexpected objects, even when those unexpected objects appear right where they are looking. Throughout the first chapter of The Invisible Gorilla, the authors Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons continue to bring up the concept of "looking vs. seeing." Have you ever thought about the difference between the two?

For some seeing is active, it speaks to the understanding, being aware of your surroundings, and seeing past what is actually in front of you. Whereas looking is passive, it is not truly engaging into your unexpected surroundings and creating a miniscule perspective. In the first chapter, an experiment is conducted in order to challenge this concept. A group of scientists instructed a number people to to count how many passes they made with a basketball. During the recording, the students did not notice anybody in a full-body gorilla suit during the experiement. After this occured, many questions were raised as to why the gorilla was "invisible." The scientists believe that this error of perception results from a lack of attention to an unexpected object. In essence, we know how vividly we see some aspects of our world, but we are completely unaware of those aspects of our world that fall outside of that current focus of attention.

Which in fact raises another question; is attention and distraction interchangable? Focused attention allows us to avoid distraction and use our limited resources more effectivelyg what type of person you are. Whether you are a "noticer vs. misser", can also play a significant role in this concept. One factor in question towards this concept is the individual's intellect. Throughout the book, many experiements have been conducted in order to test the subject's attention span. They continue to ask why don't the subject's see the obstacles before them?, but the real question should be how much will their minds allow them to see? Chabris and Simons answer this question stating," the structure of the mind doesn't permit us to conciously perceive everything around us"( pg.38). This "lack of attention", results from theinherent limits on . But on the contrary, somebody could be distracted because they are putting their attention elsewhere. "If we pay more attention to one place, object, or event, we necessarily pay less attention to others." The effect of inattention are further amplified by any device or activity that takes away from what we are trying to do. What society fails to realize, is that distraction is also inhereted from what we feel is important. Which the book refers to as "the illusion of attention", meaning we concentrate so much on our own priorities, we become blind to what is "supposed" to be obvious around us. "The gorilla study illustrates we experience far