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Your Brain's Tricks
Why half of people missed a stranger swap
A stranger asks you for directions. A door passes between you. Would you notice a whole new person?
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- In the study, a stranger asked for directions, and two people carried a door between them; behind it, the stranger was swapped for a different person with different clothes, height, build, haircut and voice.
- Only about half of the people noticed the swap, and in a repeat with everyone dressed as construction workers, fewer than half of the students noticed.
- Your memory keeps the gist, someone asking the way, and lets the details go. Researchers call this change blindness.
Simons and Levin (1997), Change blindness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 1(7).
Simons and Levin (1998), Failure to detect changes to people during a real-world interaction. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
