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Inattentional blindness through the eyes of the observer

Kosters, C. (2010) Inattentional blindness through the eyes of the observer.

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Abstract:Inattentional blindness, the failure of noticing unexpected items or persons, will be looked at literally through the eyes of the observer in this experiment. With use of an eye-tracker, the eye-movements of the viewer will be registered and analyzed. The goal is to establish whether inattentional blindness means that the observer does not see the unexpected item, or that he does see it, but forgets about it. The participants are asked to look at two dynamic events, or movies, one does include an unexpected event, the other one does not. With these dynamic events, a counting assignment is given. After both movies four pictures are shown, with the intention to see whether the fixation time for the picture of the unexpected event is different than for the other pictures. The results show that eight of the eighteen participants who claimed they did not see the unexpected event, did look at the unexpected event. However, no evidence was found for different looking behavior for the picture of the unexpected item. Thus, the results show that the claim that inattentional blindness is caused by the participant not seeing the unexpected event is not true: the unexpected event is looked at. However, no evidence is found for the theory that states that the unexpected item is seen but forgotten: no different fixation times were found for the picture of the unexpected event. The unexpected event is looked at, but it seems that it is not noticed.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology BSc (56604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/59455
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