--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Stanley" > <j_alexander_stanley@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > > This test is part of a series on bicycle safety, > > > and it's a real doozy. Try it and see how well > > > you do: > > > > > > http://www.dothetest.co.uk/ > > > > > > I think it's *very* instructive, and has a lot > > > to say about perception and, dare I say it, the > > > tendency for people to claim that something is > > > true because they saw it. Or haven't. > > > > Ha! That was great! I can count, but I can't see fer shit. > > That's the point, as I see it. NONE of us can > see for shit. > > We see the stuff we've been told to look for.
Actually, there are two different points to be made with that video (which was originally made for an entirely different purpose than what the bicycle safety site uses it for; actually there are several different versions, one with a gorilla instead of a bear, another in which a woman holding an open umbrella walks through the ball players). One point is that we sometimes miss things that we shouldn't have missed (in the context of the Web site, drivers may miss seeing a bicyclist because they're focusing on other cars). The other point is that our cognitive apparatus is carefully designed to focus on what is relevant to whatever we're doing, while excluding things that don't matter--even when they're quite prominent. Most of the time that skill serves us well. We couldn't function efficiently if we weren't able to exclude what's irrelevant. Occasionally, though, it's a drawback, as when the automobile driver focuses on other cars and doesn't notice the bicyclist. But that doesn't happen because of a flaw in our cognitive apparatus; it's functioning precisely as it should. It's just that we don't always know what's going to be relevant and what isn't. In the case of the video, the bear is irrelevant to the task we're asked to perform. Its presence doesn't affect the number of ball passes. And if our attention is caught by the bear, we lose track of the passes we're supposed to be counting. In the bicycle-safety context, noticing a bicycle *could* cause the automobile driver to lose their focus on the other cars. It's entirely possible the driver would have a serious accident, while the bicyclist escaped unscathed; whereas if the driver hadn't been distracted by the bicyclist, there would have been no accident to either the driver or the cyclist. That's essentially the situation with the video. If we aren't distracted by the bear, we're able to maintain an accurate count of the ball passes, and of course nothing happens to the bear. But when we're asked to watch for the bear, we're almost certain to fail at the task of keeping count of the ball passes. In other words, the video doesn't really make the point the Web site tries to use it to make. <snip> > I love this test because it reminds me of realization. It shouldn't, in fact, because the bear is an element in the relative, whereas the realization of enlightenment transcends the relative. A more accurate parallel to enlightenment would be maintaining awareness that we're watching a video at the same time that we're engrossed in counting the passes and/or watching for the bear.
