The Gorilla You Missed
Written by Studio AM.
Your result
- Words per minute
- Score
- Pace
Words per minute mean something only with the score beside them. They describe this passage on this read. With fewer than 3 right, try the next slower pace.
Choose a pace and select Start. The passage is paced and timed, then the questions check what you understood. How pace mode works
Reading time 0:00
In a well-known experiment, viewers watch two teams passing basketballs and count the passes made by one team. In a widely shown version, they track the team in white while a person in a gorilla suit crosses the scene. Many viewers miss the unexpected person. How often people notice depends on the task and the version of the video.
This is called inattentional blindness: failing to notice something visible while attention is occupied elsewhere. An image can reach the retina, the light-sensitive surface at the back of the eye, without becoming part of conscious awareness. Attention helps select what we process. Some visible events remain unrecorded in what we notice or remember.
Watching again without the counting task makes the unexpected person much easier to see. That contrast shows why feeling attentive is not a guarantee of noticing everything. The effect can help explain how a driver might look toward a motorcycle yet fail to notice it. It cannot establish the cause of any particular crash or verify what a driver reports.
The experiment is a demonstration of selective attention, not a test of a viewer's intelligence or overall eyesight.
The passage is hidden while you answer. It comes back with your result.
Questions
Choose an answer. The explanation appears after you answer.
-
Question 1 of 4
What is the main idea of the passage?
The answer is B: Attention is limited and aimed, so people can fail to see obvious things they are looking at.
The task occupies attention, and an unexpected visible event can be missed despite functioning eyesight.
-
Question 2 of 4
What were the viewers asked to do while watching the video?
The answer is C: Count the passes made by the team in white.
The first sentence gives the task: counting the passes made by the team in white.
-
Question 3 of 4
What can the experiment suggest about a driver who reports missing a motorcycle?
The answer is D: That failing to notice a visible object is possible, without proving what happened in that incident.
The passage offers a possible attention mechanism while explicitly limiting what it can establish about an individual event.
-
Question 4 of 4
What does “unrecorded” mean here?
The answer is B: entered the visual field but was not noticed or remembered
The word describes what crosses the visual field while attention is aimed elsewhere.
Score: none answered yet.