[Guest]

Here's a video that shows a rather interesting feature of the human mind's ability to focus:

http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/grafs/demos/15.html

I saw this video in a class a few years ago, but I only just found this link recently. If people want to talk about it, I would suggest using spoilers for the first page or so since discussion might ruin the experience for newcomers.

[Guest]

I saw the gorilla. Not sure what that signifies - perhaps it was too easy to keep track of the passes. Maybe you should have put a poll on this topic...

[Guest]

I saw the gorilla. Not sure what that signifies - perhaps it was too easy to keep track of the passes. Maybe you should have put a poll on this topic...

I thought about a poll, but I wasn't sure what to put as the choices and by adding a poll, I would likely affect people's perceptions going into viewing the video. Most people don't notice what's going on outside of what they are trying to do. I admit that I missed it, but I had a better lead-in than what I provided here:

I saw this as part of a TED talk, but like I said it was an excerpt in a class so I never found the link to the talk on TED. The lecturer (on TED) had a nice big lead up to the video "leading you down the garden path" as it were to change your expectations.

His lead in went something like this (paraphrased):

"This video has shown some very interesting results (especially between different gender responses in their ability to follow the instructions)...[show video]...Now, how many of you saw the gorilla?...Actually, I changed your expectations by adding in the gender element. In fact, there is no statistical difference between the ability of men or women to see the gorilla on first time viewing, but I said that to drive your focus on the stated task to the point of ignorance to everything else in the scene."

That's more or less what he said, but I can't find the lecturer and I don't know what his whole talk was about as our professor only showed the bit with the video and the brief analysis provided afterward. So I can't provide much more context than that.

Since this is BD, when I just posted the video here, most of the people here are probably going to be expecting a trick or something and will keep their focus less honed than the video intends for them to be. Actually, just knowing the sort of population that BD draws, I would anticipate that a higher percentage of the viewership here would catch the "trick" of the video than would be true of the general populace.

Apparently, I could still add a poll. If I was going to add a poll, what sort of responses are you thinking I should include?

[unreality]

i've seen this before (we watched it in psychology I think) so I knew that there would be a gorilla, but I remember the first time my teacher split us in half into one group to watch the white-shirted people and one group to watch the black-shirted people. I was one of the white-shirted-watching folks and I remember the other half of the class start laughing and it was really confusing haha

[Guest]

It was a bit darker, and less obvious. Also, it was a moonwalking bear. In this one, I counted the passes right and saw the Gorilla, because I was expecting it. But I was also expecting it to moonwalk

[Guest]

saw gorilla but lost count of passes.

i saw something coming from off screen, and my vision focused on it.

after doing so though i forgot the number of passes.

[Guest]

...Since this is BD, when I just posted the video here, most of the people here are probably going to be expecting a trick or something and will keep their focus less honed than the video intends for them to be. Actually, just knowing the sort of population that BD draws, I would anticipate that a higher percentage of the viewership here would catch the "trick" of the video than would be true of the general populace.

I think that hits the nail on the head. Whether due to context or the kind of people we are, Braindenners are surely more likely to keep an eye open for the extra trick.

One way to do the poll could be to say "watch the video then read the spoiler to see how accurately you performed the task". You could even introduce the gender red herring as your reason for doing the poll.

The poll could offer "Response A", "Response B", "Response C" and "Response D", which allows you to record whether you saw the gorilla and whether you counted correctly. 4 responses forces you to read the spoiler rather than guess what the responses mean. Just for fun you could double it up to eight responses to bring gender into it after all (MA, MB, MC, MD, FA, FB, FC, FD), see if there is a difference! Maybe the multitasking capabilities of women would make them better gorilla-spotters...

[Guest]

I think that hits the nail on the head. Whether due to context or the kind of people we are, Braindenners are surely more likely to keep an eye open for the extra trick.

One way to do the poll could be to say "watch the video then read the spoiler to see how accurately you performed the task". You could even introduce the gender red herring as your reason for doing the poll.

The poll could offer "Response A", "Response B", "Response C" and "Response D", which allows you to record whether you saw the gorilla and whether you counted correctly. 4 responses forces you to read the spoiler rather than guess what the responses mean. Just for fun you could double it up to eight responses to bring gender into it after all (MA, MB, MC, MD, FA, FB, FC, FD), see if there is a difference! Maybe the multitasking capabilities of women would make them better gorilla-spotters...

So your suggesting that I say something along the lines of:

How well can you follow the instructions in this video? It has been said that males and females perform differently. Vote after watching the video at the link in post 1: (check post XX* for response categories):

• Response MA
  
• Response MB
  
• Response MC
  
• Response MD
  
• Response FA
  
• Response FB
  
• Response FC
  
• Response FD
  

* Where XX is the number of the post where I explain the responses (which would have to be later in the thread since I don't have infinite edit capability).

Edited April 30, 2010 by dawh

[Guest]

So your suggesting that I say something along the lines of:

How well can you follow the instructions in this video? It has been said that males and females perform differently. Vote after watching the video at the link in post 1: (check post XX* for response categories):

• Response MA
• Response MB
• Response MC
• Response MD
• Response FA
• Response FB
• Response FC
• Response FD

* Where XX is the number of the post where I explain the responses (which would have to be later in the thread since I don't have infinite edit capability).

Yes that was the general idea. It's so nice to have infinite edit, shame I can't edit other people's posts too

Maybe a kindly mod would edit the OP for you