"In some ways, this was a firsthand experience of some research I had read about on “inattentional blindness.” [[University of California, Berkeley|Berkeley]] researchers [[Arien Mack]] and [[Irvin Rock]] coined the term in the 1990s while studying **the drastic difference in our ability to perceive something if it lies outside our field of visual attention**. "In a simple experiment, **they asked subjects to look at a cross on the screen and try to determine whether any of the lines were longer than the other. But this was a made-up task to distract subjects from the actual experiment. While the subjects were staring at the cross, a small stimulus would flash somewhere on the screen. When the stimulus fell inside the circular area circumscribing the cross lines, the subjects were much more likely to see it**. “In short, when the inattention stimulus falls outside the area to which attention is paid, it is much less likely to capture attention and be seen,” the researchers write." ([Location 2021](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07RHWKD7N&location=2021)) --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[attention]], [[inattentional-blindness]], [[monkey-business-test]], **Source** -- [[20251230081807 - B - How to Do Nothing]]