Daniel Simons
Daniel Simons | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | Cornell University |
| Known for | "Gorillas in the Midst" |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Psychology Change blindness |
| Institutions | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Harvard University |
Daniel J. Simons is the head of the Visual Cognition Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[1] In 2004, Simons published a paper in the journal Perception entitled "Gorillas in Our Midst," along with Harvard's Christopher Chabris.[2] He and Chabris won the 2005 Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology for the paper, which detailed how people often miss events occurring directly in front of them.[2] When asked to count the number of passes in a basketball game, study participants usually missed a woman dressed as a gorilla who walked directly onto the middle of the basketball court and beat her chest.[2][3] Even when asked if they saw the gorilla, they had no memory of seeing a gorilla in the video.[4] The phenomenon is called inattentional blindness.[5]
British psychologist Richard Wiseman wrote a book based on the concept of Simons' video called Did You Spot the Gorilla?[3]
External links
References
- ^ "Visual Cognition Lab". UIUC Visual Cognition Laboratory. Retrieved 2009-07-08.
- ^ a b c "Invisible gorilla steals Ig Nobel prize". New Scientist. 2004-10-01. Retrieved 2009-07-08.
- ^ a b "Seeing The Gorilla". Forbes. 2007-10-09. Retrieved 2009-07-08.
- ^ Grandin, Temple (2005). Animals in Translation. New York, New York: Scribner. p. 24. ISBN 0743247698.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ "What It Takes To Survive". Newsweek. 2009-01-24. Retrieved 2009-07-08.