Latest inattentional blindness Stories

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Distracted behavior is a burgeoning problem in our society, largely due to mobile technology. While distracted driving is arguably the most dangerous when it comes to mobile use, another type of distraction is quickly becoming a safety concern. A new study, published online in the journal Injury Prevention, warns that distracted walking is quickly becoming just as much of a hazard as distracted driving. The researchers found...

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online How many times have you driven a route that you were familiar with, made it safely to your destination, and then realized that you can’t recall any of the specifics of your journey? Maybe you were focusing on the music on the radio or the stress of the day. Perhaps in our increasingly digital existence, you were paying attention to incoming texts or listening to the turn-by-turn directions of your GPS unit. This psychological...

Do you ever wear your headphones on the go, listening to your favorite music on your iPhone or your MP3 player, and unaware to the world around you? Well if you do, then you should read this: According to a new US study, serious accidents involving pedestrians wearing headphones connected to their personal mobile devices such as iPods, have tripled over the past six years. An increase in the use of headphones while walking in the street has led to the dramatic rise in the number of...

Teens, Young Adult Males Predominantly Affected; Nearly Three Quarters of Injuries Are Fatal BALTIMORE, Jan. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Listen up, pedestrians wearing headphones. Can you hear the trains or cars around you? Many probably can't, especially young adult males. Serious injuries to pedestrians listening to headphones have more than tripled in six years, according to new research from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Maryland...

In a new study, researchers tested the claims of a Boston police officer who said he ran past a brutal police beating without seeing it. After re-creating some of the conditions of the original incident and testing the perceptions of college students who ran past a staged fight, the researchers found the officer's story plausible. The study appears in the peer-reviewed open access journal i-Perception. Psychology professors Christopher Chabris (Union College) and Daniel Simons...

Is it really possible for people with perfectly normal hearing to become deaf to the world around them when they are concentrating on another subject? New research funded by the Wellcome Trust suggests it is in fact possible. The new study, published in the journal "Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics', suggests that focusing heavily on a task results in the experience of deafness to other sounds within earshot. Researchers at University College London (UCL) demonstrate this...

Why we don't see what's right in front of our eyesUniversity of Utah psychologists have learned why many people experience "inattention blindness" "“ the phenomenon that leaves drivers on cell phones prone to traffic accidents and makes a gorilla invisible to viewers of a famous video.The answer: People who fail to see something right in front of them while they are focusing on something else have lower "working memory capacity" "“ a measure of "attentional...

A new study finds that those who know that an unexpected event is likely to occur are no better at noticing other unexpected events "“ and may be even worse "“ than those who aren't expecting the unexpected.The study, from Daniel Simons, a professor of psychology and in the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, appears this month as the inaugural paper in the new open access journal i-Perception. (www.perceptionweb.com/i-perception)The study used a new video based on one used...

Corrects story posted July 4, 2006. Revises first sentence of eighth paragraph, which originally stated, incorrectly, "Overall, one third of the study participants didn't notice the gorilla." NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who have been drinking may miss objects that appear unexpectedly in their field of sight, even when their blood alcohol levels are just half the legal driving limit. "In light of this result, perhaps lawmakers should reconsider the level of intoxication...

NEW YORK -- People who have been drinking may miss objects that appear unexpectedly in their field of sight, even when their blood alcohol levels are just half the legal driving limit."In light of this result, perhaps lawmakers should reconsider the level of intoxication deemed legal to operate a vehicle," Dr. Seema L. Clifasefi of the University of Washington in Seattle and her colleagues suggest in a report.This phenomenon, known as inattentional blindness, occurs commonly among...