Final answer:
Attention is the process of focusing on certain elements, while inattentional blindness is not noticing visible objects due to such focused attention. A classic study demonstrated this when participants counting basketball passes failed to see a person in a gorilla suit. These phenomena highlight the importance of attention in perception.
Step-by-step explanation:
The difference between attention and inattentional blindness relates to the way our perceptual system works when we focus on specific tasks. Attention is the process of concentrating on certain elements within the environment while ignoring others. For instance, if you are at a noisy party, you might focus on a conversation with a friend, effectively tuning out all other sounds and sights.
Inattentional blindness refers to a lack of awareness of objects that are in plain sight because our focus is directed elsewhere. A famous illustration of this phenomenon is the study by Simons and Chabris (1999), where participants watching a video of people passing basketballs were asked to count the passes made by the team in white. Astonishingly, many did not notice a person in a gorilla suit who walked right through the scene - a clear case of inattentional blindness due to their focused attention on counting the passes.
Experiments, like the one that found about one third of participants failed to notice a red cross on the screen when focusing on black or white objects, show how selective our attention can be and how it can lead to inattentional blindness. Such phenomena underscore the importance of designing systems that support the maintenance of attention and prevent inattentional blindness, especially in contexts where vigilance and monitoring are critical.