h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dani, Michelle, Stephie, Kat and Skenvoy will not be able to do this, because they've already done it

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Fancy taking part in a little psychology experiment?

http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html
Wait for the video to load (it's in a Java applet) and play it through only once - you just need to count the number of times the basketballs are passed.

DO NOT READ ON UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE THIS.

.1

..2

...3

....4

.....5

......6

.......7

........8

.........9

..........10!

Did you notice anything odd during the video?

Watch it again, but this time you don't need to count the passes - just watch what's happening.

.1

..2

...3

....4

.....5

......6

.......7

........8

.........9

..........10!

You saw the gorilla that time, didn't you?

The theory is that most people are so focussed on counting the passes, they don't notice the gorilla.

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That's the theory. I conducted my own mini-study a month or two ago, using the instructions you've just read (copy/pasted almost word for word). The results were quite surprising.

Eighteen people, including myself, took part (plus two who'd seen it before and one who did it wrong). Only six of them didn't see the gorilla. That's a 66% success rate for seeing the gorilla - and a complete failure for the original results Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the participants in the original study were all American, and mine were all British/Australian? Hmm...

For the record, I saw the gorilla

I'll try it later

Well, if you've read this, you know what to look for, and it won't work

I want to do it again tho!

Go on then. I bet you a tenner you see the gorilla