Question

Elijah goes into the library to find his friend Aimee who went there to study. He walks through the library until he sees her and then sits down beside her. Later Elijah's friend Marvin comes over and says, "Hey, man, why did you ignore me when you walked right past me a minute ago?" Elijah shakes his head, not knowing why he didn't see Marvin. Elijah's failure to see Marvin when he was focusing on finding Aimee is an example of

a.
noise.

b.
selective perception.

c.
insular listening.

d.
biased perception.

e.
assimilation.

Answer 1

Elijah's inability to notice Marvin as he was searching for Aimee in the library is an example of selective perception, which is closely related to inattentional blindness.

Step-by-step explanation:

Elijah's failure to see Marvin when he was focusing on finding Aimee is an example of selective perception. This phenomenon is related to attention and how it can dictate what we perceive in our environment. When Elijah was looking for Aimee, his attention was narrowly focused on this task, which likely caused him to unconsciously ignore other stimuli, including Marvin. Similar to the famous study by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris where participants failed to notice a gorilla in a video because they were focused on counting basketball passes, Elijah experienced inattentional blindness. This term describes the failure to notice fully visible objects or occurrences because one's attention is focused elsewhere.