Attention and Consciousness
(This page last updated 4 October, 2004.)
Change Blindness
- Find difference between two images.
- Flicker in between presentations.
- Shows that our memory for images is very limited, even for
very short delay.
- Remember gist well.
- Don't remember details.
- Hard to find change when both versions are consistent with
gist.
Inattentional Blindness
- Mack and Rock experiment
- Simons gorilla demonstration
- Very salient stimuli are missed if not the focus of
attention.
Implications for Awareness
- Our perception of the world and the information we extract
from it seems rich and complete.
- At any one moment, our attention is often focused on a small
aspect of the complex world in front of us.
- Inattentional blindness studies show that we are aware of
little outside the focus of attention.
- Change blindness studies show that we remember little of what
we have attended after attention moves.
- Our experience is not as full and complete as we might
think.
Relevant Website
Demonstrations
of experiments in change blindness and inattentional blindness
Next class: Selves
Psych 391D:
Consciousness 
Kyle Cave
Psychology Dept.
U.
Mass.