Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

david — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:13:30 GMT

I think that the responses here from people who don't want to accept the reality of ths experiment, totally confirm how easy it is to deceive.. and how thir egos contribute to this.Don't many get peed off when they think they have been made to look foolish...instead of human?
...The responses tell us as much as the original experiment!

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

rajsanand — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 10:47:42 GMT

I saw the gorilla the first time, but i wasn't counting, I was like"how could anyone miss the gorilla it was beating its chest in the middle for a few seconds and then goes out of the frame".
The second time I decided to count the number of passes, Now i just saw the gorilla walking off, I missed it beating the chest totally.
I counted 16 passes but there were more as I was trying to "notice" the gorilla.
I dont think that people who dont see the gorilla are decieved(that is if they count more than 15 passes). I think they are good at concentrating. Also if you notice the gorilla is NOT entering randomly.(if it is the timing is co-incidently perfect) As you see when he is beating his chest there is a lot of passing taking place to its left and if you really want to count then that is where your eyes are supposed to be.
Also the gorilla is beating his chest but there are two people passing the gorilla blocking the view. So if we look to the other side while they are passing in front of the gorilla is very likely to miss it. Because we are trying to steal a glance to the other side to view if someone else is passing there. The timing gap which we get between the passing taking place on this side is the time we glance to the other side, it is during this very second that one of the players are passing in front of the gorilla.
The timing is very perfect it is just not a random passing of the gorilla.
A gorilla is somewhat like a human being and you will think it is an extra person.
The second time I noticed it(because I knew) and inspite of this I could not steal a proper glance(or i had to miss a few passes). It was only because I know it was a gorilla I "assumed" if I had not known a gorilla it would passed of as a man.
Secondly the passes are low so you dont see the face. The body much or less looks human.
You have to make a choice here count the passes or catch the gorilla.(and get the passes right)

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

Buckeye50 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:51:11 GMT

Perhaps Dr. Mercola should have worded the title to this article " Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily SOME You Are Deceived" because apparently he stepped on the sensitive little egos of some participants!

Good grief, folks! Get a life. Can't a doc have a little fun without someone getting all uppity and "offended"? No one made you take the challenge...

Or was Dr. Merc using subliminal messages...hmmmmmm....

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

gardenhearth — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:21:42 GMT

I think that type of experiment would need to be expanded to include different angles before concluding that the experiment proves Americans are conditioned (which, despite the level of accuracy of this experiment, I believe Americans are conditioned). The reason being is because people learn and observe in different ways naturally, not necessarily as a product of conditioning. For example, some people are auditory learners which means they learn best by hearing information. Some people are visual learners meaning they learn/observe visually (usually in pictures). Mode of learning/observation would certainly influence how a person observed the video.
I'm a highly visual learner. When I read, I see pictures. If I can't visualize something either in a picture, illustration, or diagram, I have a difficult time putting it to memory and also absorbing it in such a way as to apply what I've learned.
I counted 17 passes (not sure if that's the correct number) but I did also briefly notice the person in the gorilla suit.

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

aznsquirt — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:14:35 GMT

Well, i'm pretty sure there is a point to be made that people who generally didn't see it are focusing harder. The people who didn't see the gorilla are probably more likely to have picked up the correct number of ball movements if it had been extremely tricky to do. At any rate, how it is deceiving to tell someone to look for something, and then point out that they didn't see something else? I don't know how many times the black players passed the ball, I didn't know how many elevators were in the background, I couldn't tell you how many of the players were wearing blue jeans, and I couldn't have told you the letter that is written on the walls next to the elevators either. Oh i've been so deceived. Without looking, I couldn't have told you what was written on the CD case sitting next to my computer monitor, as I've been concentrating on my computer monitor for the last 2 hours and haven't had a single reason to care or even notice the CD jewel case sitting next to my monitor. Oh no, gmail and myspace are brainwashing me from the truth!!! If you want to talk about deception, what about the man in the suit that you're parading around as an alleged "Gorilla"? :)

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

tyciol — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:54:23 GMT

Wow, way to take an opportunity to rag on people's intelligence and promote conspiracy-theories... yet again.

The reason we (I too) didn't notice the gorrilla is because we have great focus. NOT that we're distracted. In fact, in this situation, the gorilla is the distraction. The task in the movie is quite complicated, and I'm sure I didn't get anywhere near the correct number of passes, it's hard to follow so many going at once and mentally selecting which to tabulate.

To simplify the counting process, we simply divide it into black and white blobs in our brain to make it easier to focus on the balls and whose hands the balls are leaving.

Besides which, remembering back, I do remember that figure, I just didn't look at his features, because I had blobbified him. He was another guy in a black shirt.

Children noticing the gorilla has nothing to do with being deconditioned or anything, but that they lack focus and probably aren't trying to count the passes at all.

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

the minds eye — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 05:33:50 GMT

Viewed video, saw gorilla. Response back, "Well done, I don't really believe you. But who knows?"

I can usually see things in photos, movies, and even pick up on subliminal signals in music played in stores. Reason, I have the gift of being Dyslexic. From what I've been told, NASA, when hiring, usually looks for people who are Dyslexia, as they can see outside of the box.

So the Dyslexic's out there, can; utilize the brain's ability to alter & create preceptions, hightly aware of the environment, more courious than average, think mainly in pictures instead of words, highly intuitive & insightful, think & preceive multi-dimensionally, can experience thought as reality, vivid imaginations.

We just have difficulty with words, spelling, reading (sometimes they can't read), and at times verbally.

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

suhok17 — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 20:37:12 GMT

I was a bit insulted by the "I don't really believe you" part of the results page. I noticed the gorilla easily, and got the correct amount of tosses, but I don't think it is because I am smarter or more aware than others.

I think it is because I expected a trick, so I was paying more attention to what was going on and looking for anything that might reveal what the trick was. I do agree that distraction is an easy way to fool people, but I think experiments done in this manner are flawed because you generate expectations of some gimic by the wording preceeding the experiment. The title alone screams trick: "Mind-Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived". So I paid more attention to anything abnormal and kept counting as a lower priority.

At first I thought the gorilla was a distraction to take your mind off the tossing, so I tried to not pay attention to it, and therefore thought that it was a trick to distract you from the counting of tosses. I was a little surprised and disappointed that the point of the video was noticing the gorilla.

However, such a 'scientific' experiment seems to be a 'holyier-than-thou' type of attitude which I found distasteful and makes me regret coming to this site. I also believe that the way it was set up will lead to many more noticing the gorilla than if it was set up in a more scientific way.

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

Russ G. — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 23:02:00 GMT

Like most of the others, I was disappointed with the results pages. I mean, where was the reward for my efforts?...

But what really threw me was watching the video the second time. Granted, I was concentrating quite diligently during the first viewing, and when presented with a question about what animal I had seen crossing in front of the screen, I could honestly say I hadn't "consciously" seen any animal.

Upon watching the video the second time, there was this gorilla-suited person just casually cruising into and out of the action!

Now, I consider myself more observant than most - primarily from consciously applying myself to the practice of increased attention. I guess you could chalk that up to more than 23 years of military service. We call it "situational awareness", and it's a valuable (possibly life-saving) skill to have.

I'm also an internet marketer. So, my initial reaction - and I'm not sure it has changed - is that this was a clever manipulation technique used on us through the common internet marketing practice of "split-testing".

You know, when you go to a web page and get one view, then either refresh the page or come back a little later and get a different view. This is especially common with salespages, to determine the one with the highest percentage of sales conversions.

So, I'm not entirely convinced that the second viewing wasn't in fact, a different, but very similar video - this time with a gorilla. And for those who saw the gorilla at the first viewing, perhaps they were shown video "B" the first time.

Either that, or this was a very effective demonstration of how my mind works - and doesn't work...

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

mjbogdanov_3 — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:34:24 GMT

I'm not sure if others like me had/have a similar experience but I am ADHD
and easily saw the gorilla (and was not in the least surprised that I saw it. ) I am always that person in the room who can tell you what each of the conversations going on are about. My husband, on the other hand, will not notice if I feed the dog straight from my plate at the dinner table. Does this represent an up-side to ADHD? It would be nice to think so.

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

dcbme — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:18:40 GMT

Was at a seminar this weekend and saw this for the first time. About 10 of 80 people saw something else and only a handful noticed the gorilla and who's to say they did not see this somewhere else. I then showed my children at home and my 12 yo was the only one that saw a gorilla. Incidentally, she is my most visual child.

I agree that tactics are used in all types of advertising and I suppose we should be more aware and not fall prey to subliminal messages.

Remember the movie the exorcist? At least two clips in the film showed "the devil" in Linda Blairs room. Perfect example of deception.

Cheers!

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

mailmenow — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 06:05:26 GMT

The gorillla was in my way of watching the ball exchanges. I did not know that it was a gorilla until that option was offerred to me.

Steve Petersen

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

mmc88121 — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:03:36 GMT

I enjoyed the video. But I would like to know how many passes there were. Also, they didn't have the correct answer for what "animal" I saw in the video.

mmc88121

re: Mind Blowing Video Illustrating How Easily You Are Deceived

friendly curmudgeon — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:44:12 GMT

I wish the "results" were a little more than "close enough." I mean, c'mon. "Close enough" is for horseshoes and hand grenades -- not basketball passes.

And my mind is still in one piece, even after viewing the film. I was surprised that anyone could MISS the creature that made a hairy cameo in that film (and I don't consider myself as being THAT savvy, but that call was a no-brainer). Should I join mensa? Apesa, maybe?

-- Tarzan the Curmudgeon