Simons & Chabris

The Simons & Chabris study explores how people often miss unexpected events when they are focused on a specific task—a phenomenon called "inattentional blindness." In their famous experiment, participants watch a video of people passing a basketball and are asked to count passes. During the video, a person in a gorilla costume walks through. Surprisingly, about half of the viewers fail to notice the gorilla because their attention was occupied with counting passes. This illustrates how focused attention can cause people to overlook obvious things happening around them, highlighting limitations in human perception and awareness.