The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us
Tom Vanderbilt ReviewsThe Invisible GorillaTom Vanderbiltwrites on design, technology, architecture, science, and many other topics. He is author ofTraffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)published in 2008 by Alfred A. Knopf, andSurvival City: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America, published in 2002 by Princeton Architectural Press. He is contributing editor toI.D.andPrintmagazines, contributing writer atDesign Observer, and writes for many publications, ranging fromWiredto theNew York Timesto Men'sVogueto theWilson Quarterly. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.Do you remember when you first saw--or more likely, didn’t see--the gorilla?  For me it was one afternoon a number of years ago when I clicked open one of those noxious-but-irresistible forwarded emails ("You Won’t Believe Your Eyes!").  The task was simple--count the number of passes in a tight cluster of basketball players--but the ensuing result was astonishing:  As I dutifully (and correctly) tracked the number of passes made, a guy in a gorilla suit had strolled into the center, beat his chest, and sauntered off. But I never saw the gorilla. And I was hardly alone.The video, which went on to become a global viral sensation, brought "inattentional blindness"--a once comparatively obscure interest of cognitive psychologists--into striking relief. Here was a dramatic reminder that looking is not necessarily seeing, that “paying” attention to one thing might come at the cost of missing another altogether. No one was more taken with the experience than the authors of the original study, Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, as they recount in their new--and, dare I say, eye-opening--book,The Invisible Gorilla. "The fact that people miss things is important," they write, "but what impressed us even more was the surprise people showed when they realized what they had missed."The Invisible Gorillauses that ersatz primate as a departure point (and overarching metaphor) for exploring the myriad of other illusions, perceptual or otherwise, that we encounter in everyday life--and our often complete lack of awareness as we do so. These "gorillas" are lurking everywhere--from the (often false) memories we think we have to the futures we think we can anticipate to the cause-and-effect chains we feel must exist. Writing with authority, clarity, and a healthy dose of skepticism, Simons and Chabris explore why these illusions persist--and, indeed, seem to multiply in the modern world--and how we might work to avoid them. Alas, there are no easy solutions--doing crosswords to stave off cognitive decline in one’s dotage may simply make you better at doing crosswords. But looking for those "gorillas in our midst" is as rewarding as actually finding them.(Photo © Kate Burton)