Inattentional Blindness: Experiences Sought
Discussion
A Chartered Psychologist friend is writing a book and asked me to post this on the forum:
What psychologists call inattentional blindness, and everyone else calls blind spots, describes our failure to detect an unexpected but clearly visible object when our attention is engaged elsewhere. It's the subject of a book I am currently writing. Looking without seeing, such as failing to observe a driver pulling out from a side turning, is the cause of a great many accidents. Does anyone have any personal experience of such blind spots? I’d love to hear about them.
What psychologists call inattentional blindness, and everyone else calls blind spots, describes our failure to detect an unexpected but clearly visible object when our attention is engaged elsewhere. It's the subject of a book I am currently writing. Looking without seeing, such as failing to observe a driver pulling out from a side turning, is the cause of a great many accidents. Does anyone have any personal experience of such blind spots? I’d love to hear about them.
I thought that missing vehicles pulling out of junctions was more about saccades (the brain ignoring blurred images while your eyes are in motion) than the sort of thing you’re talking about.
Inattentional blindness sounds like when you’re trying to find something while thinking about something else and miss the fact it’s right in front of you.
Perhaps the two are connected. Or I’m talking b
ks.
Inattentional blindness sounds like when you’re trying to find something while thinking about something else and miss the fact it’s right in front of you.
Perhaps the two are connected. Or I’m talking b
ks.Your friend might look into anecdotal material surrounding aviation mid-air collisions and near-misses, and the "constant aspect, constant danger" phenomenon, whereby your visual scan tends to overlook objects which aren't apparently moving in your field of view, but that situation is exactly one that can lead to a collision if not corrected. The phenomenon can also be taken advantage of deliberately if you're trying to close with another aircraft with the intention of doing it harm.
Not sure my anecdote is “inattentional” but it illustrated to me how imprecise our vision really is.
Many years ago I lived in a flat in Islington, where car crime was a total pain. My car was outside in the street and I had a nice new radio in it, which in a misguided attempt to make secure, I had attached it very securely to the dash.
One morning I hopped into the car to drive to my parents place. Everything looked normal until there was a distinctly uncomfortable feeling in my head and the dashboard vanished, to be replaced by the bulkhead. When I looked to my left, the passenger window was also smashed, with glass all over the seat. None of this had been apparent as I got in the car. I can only assume that my brain was busy filling in the details until the evidence that all was not well became overwhelming.
Many years ago I lived in a flat in Islington, where car crime was a total pain. My car was outside in the street and I had a nice new radio in it, which in a misguided attempt to make secure, I had attached it very securely to the dash.
One morning I hopped into the car to drive to my parents place. Everything looked normal until there was a distinctly uncomfortable feeling in my head and the dashboard vanished, to be replaced by the bulkhead. When I looked to my left, the passenger window was also smashed, with glass all over the seat. None of this had been apparent as I got in the car. I can only assume that my brain was busy filling in the details until the evidence that all was not well became overwhelming.
Great topic for a book. Good luck with it.
I was waiting to pull my bright green bike into a petrol station forecourt. Indicating, etc. A driver wishing to leave the petrol station was waiting for a gap in the traffic, when the gap appeared the driver accelerated hard in my direction. They only realised I was there when they were heading straight towards me.
So, rushing and stressed/anxious seems to be potential factors in not seeing, in my experience.
I think the biggest factor though is simply not looking out the windscreen. Another factor is that people intentionally crash (see bad driving thread) and they probably come up with the excuse that they didn’t see the other driver, because the actual truth is too odd to admit.
I was waiting to pull my bright green bike into a petrol station forecourt. Indicating, etc. A driver wishing to leave the petrol station was waiting for a gap in the traffic, when the gap appeared the driver accelerated hard in my direction. They only realised I was there when they were heading straight towards me.
So, rushing and stressed/anxious seems to be potential factors in not seeing, in my experience.
I think the biggest factor though is simply not looking out the windscreen. Another factor is that people intentionally crash (see bad driving thread) and they probably come up with the excuse that they didn’t see the other driver, because the actual truth is too odd to admit.
eharding said:
Your friend might look into anecdotal material surrounding aviation mid-air collisions and near-misses, and the "constant aspect, constant danger" phenomenon, whereby your visual scan tends to overlook objects which aren't apparently moving in your field of view, but that situation is exactly one that can lead to a collision if not corrected. The phenomenon can also be taken advantage of deliberately if you're trying to close with another aircraft with the intention of doing it harm.
Yes, I was taught a visual scan that moves your eyes deliberately up and down whilst scanning left to right in order to try and minimise this risk.This link goes to a fascinating example. You need to concentrate hard on the task to get the right answer. It's quite a challenge,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
Panamax said:
This link goes to a fascinating example. You need to concentrate hard on the task to get the right answer. It's quite a challenge,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
exactly what I was about to post. Fascinating https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
dundarach said:
Haven't all us drivers experienced this, often referenced in the that feeling during a long drive when we realise "I've completely missed driving through X"
I think that is a different effect caused by the mind effectively not storing the journey or parts of it - minimal (sometimes enough, sometimes not) effort is going in to driving but the actual in-the-moment thought processes seem to not be remembered.It's kind of what happens with films. Driving is like a scene transition in a film for most people - moving from one 'scene' to the next. It's not really a meaningful experience for many so why bother remembering it? We might not actually remember large chunks of it unless we're truly focussed on the task.
It's from Ars, but the study in the article is interesting...
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/10/what-watch...
This might be why some people seem to find Michael Bay films overwhelming - minimal to no scene transitions through the film so your brain is seeing the whole film as one 'meaningful unit' in terms presented in the article and that is a massive amount to absorb in one go.
Could be b
ks too. That's the interesting bit I think. Trying to figure out what's going on.There was a post a couple of years ago by (or quoting) a Fighter pilot describing, and how to avoid, a similar phenomenon. Of course, I can’t find it or offer any useful quotes. 
Edit. Can’t find the post on here, but here is the article referred to:-
https://www.portsmouthctc.org.uk/a-fighter-pilots-...
Edit. Can’t find the post on here, but here is the article referred to:-
https://www.portsmouthctc.org.uk/a-fighter-pilots-...
Edited by CanAm on Tuesday 2nd November 09:07
Panamax said:
This link goes to a fascinating example. You need to concentrate hard on the task to get the right answer. It's quite a challenge,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
The suit was up for auction recently, as an aside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
Are you looking at the neurological as well as the psychological or is that the same umbrella?
Scott Alexander said:
Stanislas Dehaene writes of our senses:
We never see the world as our retina sees it. In fact, it would be a pretty horrible sight: a highly distorted set of light and dark pixels, blown up toward the center of the retina, masked by blood vessels, with a massive hole at the location of the “blind spot” where cables leave for the brain; the image would constantly blur and change as our gaze moved around. What we see, instead, is a three-dimensional scene, corrected for retinal defects, mended at the blind spot, stabilized for our eye and head movements, and massively reinterpreted based on our previous experience of similar visual scenes. All these operations unfold unconsciously—although many of them are so complicated that they resist computer modeling. For instance, our visual system detects the presence of shadows in the image and removes them. At a glance, our brain unconsciously infers the sources of lights and deduces the shape, opacity, reflectance, and luminance of the objects.
Predictive processing begins by asking: how does this happen? By what process do our incomprehensible sense-data get turned into a meaningful picture of the world?
The key insight: the brain is a multi-layer prediction machine. All neural processing consists of two streams: a bottom-up stream of sense data, and a top-down stream of predictions. These streams interface at each level of processing, comparing themselves to each other and adjusting themselves as necessary.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/We never see the world as our retina sees it. In fact, it would be a pretty horrible sight: a highly distorted set of light and dark pixels, blown up toward the center of the retina, masked by blood vessels, with a massive hole at the location of the “blind spot” where cables leave for the brain; the image would constantly blur and change as our gaze moved around. What we see, instead, is a three-dimensional scene, corrected for retinal defects, mended at the blind spot, stabilized for our eye and head movements, and massively reinterpreted based on our previous experience of similar visual scenes. All these operations unfold unconsciously—although many of them are so complicated that they resist computer modeling. For instance, our visual system detects the presence of shadows in the image and removes them. At a glance, our brain unconsciously infers the sources of lights and deduces the shape, opacity, reflectance, and luminance of the objects.
Predictive processing begins by asking: how does this happen? By what process do our incomprehensible sense-data get turned into a meaningful picture of the world?
The key insight: the brain is a multi-layer prediction machine. All neural processing consists of two streams: a bottom-up stream of sense data, and a top-down stream of predictions. These streams interface at each level of processing, comparing themselves to each other and adjusting themselves as necessary.
Anyway - just something to throw into the mix and apols if you already have that in mind.
Stan the Bat said:
I think cars pulling out of side roads into the path of cyclists is an example--had this happen too many times.
I always put it down to the fact that the motorist was looking for car sized objects and wasn't tuned into anything smaller.
I think that's also to do with how people judge the speed of oncoming vehicles. I've noticed that people pull out on me more when I'm in a small car than when I'm in a big car, even when the speed is the same.I always put it down to the fact that the motorist was looking for car sized objects and wasn't tuned into anything smaller.
andy_s said:
Panamax said:
This link goes to a fascinating example. You need to concentrate hard on the task to get the right answer. It's quite a challenge,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
The suit was up for auction recently, as an aside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
Are you looking at the neurological as well as the psychological or is that the same umbrella?
Scott Alexander said:
Stanislas Dehaene writes of our senses:
We never see the world as our retina sees it. In fact, it would be a pretty horrible sight: a highly distorted set of light and dark pixels, blown up toward the center of the retina, masked by blood vessels, with a massive hole at the location of the “blind spot” where cables leave for the brain; the image would constantly blur and change as our gaze moved around. What we see, instead, is a three-dimensional scene, corrected for retinal defects, mended at the blind spot, stabilized for our eye and head movements, and massively reinterpreted based on our previous experience of similar visual scenes. All these operations unfold unconsciously—although many of them are so complicated that they resist computer modeling. For instance, our visual system detects the presence of shadows in the image and removes them. At a glance, our brain unconsciously infers the sources of lights and deduces the shape, opacity, reflectance, and luminance of the objects.
Predictive processing begins by asking: how does this happen? By what process do our incomprehensible sense-data get turned into a meaningful picture of the world?
The key insight: the brain is a multi-layer prediction machine. All neural processing consists of two streams: a bottom-up stream of sense data, and a top-down stream of predictions. These streams interface at each level of processing, comparing themselves to each other and adjusting themselves as necessary.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/We never see the world as our retina sees it. In fact, it would be a pretty horrible sight: a highly distorted set of light and dark pixels, blown up toward the center of the retina, masked by blood vessels, with a massive hole at the location of the “blind spot” where cables leave for the brain; the image would constantly blur and change as our gaze moved around. What we see, instead, is a three-dimensional scene, corrected for retinal defects, mended at the blind spot, stabilized for our eye and head movements, and massively reinterpreted based on our previous experience of similar visual scenes. All these operations unfold unconsciously—although many of them are so complicated that they resist computer modeling. For instance, our visual system detects the presence of shadows in the image and removes them. At a glance, our brain unconsciously infers the sources of lights and deduces the shape, opacity, reflectance, and luminance of the objects.
Predictive processing begins by asking: how does this happen? By what process do our incomprehensible sense-data get turned into a meaningful picture of the world?
The key insight: the brain is a multi-layer prediction machine. All neural processing consists of two streams: a bottom-up stream of sense data, and a top-down stream of predictions. These streams interface at each level of processing, comparing themselves to each other and adjusting themselves as necessary.
Anyway - just something to throw into the mix and apols if you already have that in mind.
king amazing.steviebabes said:
A Chartered Psychologist friend is writing a book and asked me to post this on the forum:
What psychologists call inattentional blindness, and everyone else calls blind spots, describes our failure to detect an unexpected but clearly visible object when our attention is engaged elsewhere. It's the subject of a book I am currently writing. Looking without seeing, such as failing to observe a driver pulling out from a side turning, is the cause of a great many accidents. Does anyone have any personal experience of such blind spots? I’d love to hear about them.
No personal experience of the blind spot, but as a motorcyclist I found this interesting: https://scienceofbeingseen.org/What psychologists call inattentional blindness, and everyone else calls blind spots, describes our failure to detect an unexpected but clearly visible object when our attention is engaged elsewhere. It's the subject of a book I am currently writing. Looking without seeing, such as failing to observe a driver pulling out from a side turning, is the cause of a great many accidents. Does anyone have any personal experience of such blind spots? I’d love to hear about them.
I’d be interested to hear how your friend gets on with their book and when it’s out.
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