#ThinkfullyHabit: Spot the gorilla in the room
When was the last time you were surprised by something? How often are you surprised as you go through your day?
Being surprised is a good thing! If you’re rarely surprised it means you only see and hear what you expect to, and you may be overlooking vital information that should challenge your views.
“By thinking about what you are looking for, or anticipating what you might be looking at, your brain grows biased to see it: biologically, the neuronal processes are primed to spot objects that fit your expectation.”
WHY?
Expectation prevents us from seeing lots of things around us. The famous experiment of the gorilla and the basketball serves as a good reminder that we can miss the downright obvious that’s in plain sight if we’re not careful.
Psychologists asked people to watch a video of two teams throwing a basketball. The task was to count the number of tosses of the basketball between each team. So, the expectation was that there was basketball tossing to watch. Afterwards, each person was asked for their counts.
This wasn’t actually the question of interest. The real question was whether they saw anything unusual. Nearly half of people DIDN'T, when in fact, a person in a gorilla costume walked right between the players, pounded his chest and walked off*. By seeing what we expect to see (the basketball) we miss the blatantly obvious. And it happens everyday.
Watch the experiment here: