(Other Books by Cathy N. Davidson ‘he Fuca of Thinking Learning Jnsouons in Dig Age (with David Theo Goldberg) Cling: The Life and Death ofan American Facory (with phorogrpher Bil Bamberg) Oxford Companion t Wome Writing in the United Seats {co-edied with Linda Wagnec Three View of Me. aj: On Finding Mysfn Japan Reading in America: Lterarre and Socal Hisory Revoltion and he Word: The Ris ofthe Novel in Amerie a) NOW YOU SEE IT How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn Cathy N. Davidson VIKINGIntroduction HtHTMLAML ll Count—You Take Care of the Gorilla Five osiyus aI arende alec on he ens ofaeton thet wa pat oF uncon res died wo shoeae cating nsec by he bs and begs sma. A pilrphr who conc earch ein the med cal hol ws aking abou acenon inde, the as Fae ofthe human tran tt wen we emcrazot imdyom Sn cnc to i ot shout eveything ce? Because we cance wha we a sour cre was Acari wo cath inthe act He had watch vido of ox peopl tening Benes back and ah, sin whe cir antes in Back nd ou ake wa op ack ony fhe ones berwen the pple in whit Than he ‘ideo tk thn altough iowa asic eared on rank TV shows auf vesons nace at fs hoses under es tha acd conditions. The tape ral and eee begin counting Everyone excep mm dpe nd che momen sw hat grin ape wih he confusing basketball omer Tew I woul able keep ack thir movement 0 [ty mind wander, My crsty was pig hough, ‘whe about hit econds ino the ape a orilasaumed in umong the ay {rs She (re ler ned female rent sin eg i eed atthe ‘Samer thumped her chet and then sod vay we hey continued pasng the ball When the ge sopped, the pilsopher aks How many pope ad counted a la dven tka ser Hands went pall ov. He shen tsk wh had counted hirer, fourteen even, and conga vos who'd ‘eve the perfec fen, Then ead, “And who ew the pri?” lsd my hand spd wae sep eo dione {wa the only pein2 Now You See tt ax my table and one of only thre o four others in the large room co do 20. “Around me, others were asking, “Gora? What gol?” Some people were ge ting annoyed, Several mattered tha they deen “rcked” Instead oF answering, them, the philwopher rewound the tape and had us wach agun. This time cveryone tw the gril, ed set us up apping sin our own aencion blindness, priming us for tis lecture. Yes here ad been rick, but he was ehe one who had played ic ‘on us By concentatng so hard onthe confusing counting task, we had man aged to miss the main event: the gorilla ia the midst Iva brief experiment ‘hat had eequired us simply to pay’ atenton, twas our own minds that ad dsccived wt Except I hadn't been deceived, Pd sen che gorilla, not because Tin better sx this ehan anyone else—I'e taken enough attention tet sac that day to [know Um not-—but precisely becouse I was paying attention o counting ba tall That’ how the visual cortex ie scractured. We think we see the whole ‘word but we actully every particular parc oft. For loaf neuroscientists, that’ the cautionary message of the govla experiment: We'e noe neatly as smart swe think we are: Tina very real sense, chis book begun that day. Acention blindness is he fondamenval structuring principle ofthe brain, and believe chai present us with a tremendous opportuni, My cake is different from that of many new rosceniss: Where they perceive the shortcomings of the individual sense opportunity for collaboration. If we see selectively but we don all select the ‘aie things tose, chat also means we doe all miss the same things. IF some of scan accurately count basketballs in confusing situation and some ca se the gorilla, we can pool our insights and ogeher se the whole picture. That's significant. The gorilla experiment just lesion in bran biology but plan for thsving ina complicated wold ‘Withoat focus, the world i chaos; cere’ simply too much ro se, hea, “ad undetstand, and focus ts us dil down to che input we believes mos use- fal tous, Because focus means section, though, i leaves us with bling spots, and we need methods fo working around them. Fortunately, given the incr tive nature of most of our ives inthe digi age, we have che tools to harness ‘our diferent forms of artention and take advange of chem, ‘Buc there’sanimporeant tse step, and if we pas overt wel never beable ‘to capitalize on the bene oF our ntractive word, es no easy to acknowledge | za troduction 5 ‘that everything we've learned about how to pay attention means that we've been amising everything else—incloding the gorilla. I's not aay fr ut rational, competent, conden eypes to admit ha the very key o our succes—our able lity to pinpoint a problem and solve, an achievement honed in ll those Yeats Jn achool and eyond-—may be exactly what limits us. Fr over hundred years, we've been tsining people ro sei a particularly individual, deliberative way [No one ever told us that our way of recing exchded everyting le. Is hard for ‘sto believe were no scing ll hee is tose, Buc here’ the kicker Unles we're willing ro tke attention blindness et sonally we're going to citer Ra the Baskecball count or iss the gol every single ime. We cant even develop method for solving the dilemma until we sami ther’ a gorilla in the room and we'e ton preoccupied counting basket balls seit A grea cognitive experiment i like fntscc magic trick performed by. nexcepionlly sled magician. Icmakes us see things about ourselves that we on’ normally sce and helps us wo believe what might others be impose to azzept about the word we livin. An experiment allows us ose the imp fectand idiosycrati way our own brain works. That. ey diference between magic uicks and scientific experiments, Seen don't contive experiments rick, surprise, embarrass, or enerain us. They devise expeziment 0 they can learn more about what makes husans tick, ‘When they were just stating their carers, the young Harvard peychol tints Christopher Chari and Daniel Simons fis performed the now famous sila experiment, or what they've comet call he invible goril Tews 199, ad chey were determined co come up with «convincing way ro ilastrae the cognitive principle of selective attention that ad been identified way bak in {he 1970s but cae peopl simply efised ro Blive® A colleague down the all was ding a study on fear and happened 1 havea gota suit handy. Ther is history ‘Under normal testing conditions, over half of the participants miss the sovilla, Add peer presute and that gure goes way up Ina lve reenactment of this experiment performed in London, with four hundred very socal cllege seadents packed inco an auditorium, only 10 percent noticed the gorilla stride across he stage? We dda exp an exact count a our event, but our numbers must have rivaled those ofthe college kid in London, In our eat, the most Tkely reason so ew saw the govla was that academies like ro do well on tess