Question

Seth is a basketball player. In one play, he looks to the right but then passes the ball to the left. This example illustrates ___.

a. covert attention
b. overt attention
c. precueing
d. stimulus salience

Answer 1

Seth's action of looking right but passing the ball left is an example of covert attention, which is focusing on one part of the environment without directly looking at it.

Step-by-step explanation:

The example of Seth, the basketball player, looking to the right but passing the ball to the left, illustrates covert attention.

Unlike overt attention, which is the focus on objects or locations that we are looking at directly, covert attention refers to the act of mentally focusing on one part of the environment without looking at it directly. This example demonstrates covert attention because Seth is able to focus on his teammate on the left and pass the ball to them, despite looking to the right to potentially mislead the defenders.

In the context of the study by Simons and Chabris, this also touches on selective attention, which enables an individual to focus on a specific task at hand while ignoring other stimuli, such as the gorilla in the experiment.