Question

In a study, participants watched two teams pass a basketball among teammates. One team was wearing white shirts, and the other was wearing black shirts. Participants were told to count how many times the team wearing the white shirts passed the basketball, thereby directing their attention to the white shirts and ignoring the black shirts. Interestingly, half of the study participants failed to notice when a man wearing a black gorilla suit walked through the swirl of players, even though the gorilla paused to thump its chest. This phenomenon is known as:

Answer 1

Answer: Inattentional blindness

Explanation: Simply this phenomenon occurs due to the perceptual preoccupation with certain subjects, in this case white shirts, which is why they do not see certain phenomena, although they are within the field of view of the participants. That is why this blindness is also called perceptual blindness. In other words, participants' perceptions were influenced by being told to focus only on white shirts, and their perception was somehow "directed". Because of this, half of the participants did not see man wearing the black gorilla costume, if he was in some white costume, the participants would probably have seen him.