Kind: captions
Language: en
you are about to take part in a quick
experiment take a look at this okay now
did you happen to notice anything on
watch again see any changes don't worry
if you didn't see that it's two
different men that means your brain is
doing exactly what it should be it's
focusing on the meaning of the scene
rather than on the irrelevant details
imagine how much energy and brain mass
it would take for us to remember every
single person place or thing we
encountered the things that matter a
conversation with the co-worker your
child's first step will be drowned by a
deluge of information so when there are
minor changes to the world around us we
often don't pick up on them there are
two similar phenomena at work
inattentional blindness is the failure
to notice something that's fully obvious
right there in front of you when your
attention is engaged on something or
someone else change blindness is a
failure to notice a difference between
what's there right now and what was
there a moment ago
scientists such as Daniel Simon's from
the University of Illinois have spent
years devising experiments testing just
how perceptive and unperceptive humans
actually are so we feel like we're aware
of everything that we're taking in all
of the details and that if something
unimportant happens we'll automatically
notice it it'll capture our attention
the reality is that we often don't
notice unexpected things because we're
aware of far less of our world than we
think we are so how much or how little
are we actually aware of we decided to
recreate one of Simon's most famous
experiments to see for ourselves
here's the setup our senior series
producer VIN poses as a lost pedestrian
and asks a passerby for directions
excuse me I'm looking for the skyline
then we break the two up walking through
them holding a large sheet of wood now
watch as I replace VIN you might think
people would notice the switch but
almost half the time they didn't
of course that means more than half the
time they did we only tried the
experiment nine times and by no means
was it good science but we were
surprised four people didn't notice the
switch in Simon's original experiment
seven out of 15 people didn't either so
what determines whether or not you can
figure out the switch when you look at
another person you encode what's
relevant for what you're doing right
then in that case giving directions and
you don't pay attention to the details
that are irrelevant say what color their
shirt is or exactly how tall they are as
long as you are able to make sense of
the meaning of the scene and roughly the
main categories of that person say their
height their age what race they are what
sex they are as long as those important
things don't change the meaning of the
seat really hasn't changed and you're
not going to notice that anything's
different scientists have documented in
intentional and change blindness since
the 1970s and while they allow you to
focus your attention this failure to see
every detail can prove costly drivers
often cause accidents because they
overlook quick changes to their
environments such as pedestrians or
cyclists faulty memories can wreak havoc
during I witness testimony the goal of
vision isn't to build a photograph or a
complete model of the world in your mind
the goals of vision is to make sense of
the meaning of the world around you
being aware of our limitations can help
us adapt and compensate for them
allowing us to do things that prevent
the really negative consequences that
can happen due to failures of awareness
for example simons thinks that people
might be willing to put away their cell
phone when driving if they just
understood the limits to their attention
juries might realize that eyewitness
testimony is far from ideal and the next
time you and a friend are fighting about
the details of a past event it's likely
you're both wrong now that's something
to remember