May 10, 2007
It's not a quirk, it's a feature:
Prof Richard Wiseman tackles some of the quirkier findings in the psychological literature in a New Scientist article which has been made freely available online.
The article accompanies the launch of Wiseman's new book, Quirkology, which apparently looks at these sorts of curious research studies in more detail.
He's also created a very impressive inattentional blindness demonstration video on YouTube. Simple but very cool.
Presumably the gorilla in the background is a nod to Daniel Simons and Chris Chabris' classic study of the effect, published, rather brilliantly, under the name 'Gorillas in Our Midst' [pdf].
It's the only psychology experiment I've ever come across that used a man in a gorilla suit. Unsurprisingly, it won an IgNobel prize, but is actually a valuable contribution to our understanding of the mind.
Link to NewSci article 'A quirky look at our quirky species'.
Link to cool inattentional blindness demo.
