Moon walking gorilla? For those of us that remember this experiment from class, it's amazing how our perception can make us miss things that are right in plain sight. This concept has left me to think about what other beautiful and/or important things we are missing out on. Do we miss important information in our studies because our mind is "elsewhere"? If we can fail to see an object as blatant as a moon walking gorilla, we could fail to perceive almost anything. My friend showed me a post on facebook. This post has a violinist playing in a subway station for 45 minutes during rush hour. Few stop there busy day and listen to a man playing "some song" on his violin. The ones who stop, do so shortly, and go about their busy day. He plays 6 Bach pieces during this time, and gets around $32 for his 45 minutes of work. Not bad for a homeless man on the street, right? Due to these peoples hectic day and there inattentional blindness they fail to realize that this man is actually Joshua Bell, named one of the best musician in the word. Joshua Bell was playing on his prized Violin worth $3,500,000. That's right, 3.5 million dollars. Joshua Bell, days earlier, sold out a theater in Boston where the average ticket sold for $100. I would love to think that I would have stopped and listened, but I didn't see the gorilla either. This still leaves me wondering of all the things that are truly being missed.
Did that really just happen? Seriously?
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I heard about this and was completely shocked! Joshua Bell is an amazing violinist, so it really surprises me that any musician would pass up hearing so much talent on the street. It is also sad that people don't stop because he is perceived as just some homeless man. It is crazy and a bit scary to think of all the things we might be missing in our everyday lives because of inattentional blindness.
It is so interesting that we can miss something so fantastic. It's one thing to miss something so obvious as a moon-walking bear, but it is something totally different to not even notice that it is a famous musician playing a 3.5 million dollar violin and mistake him for some homeless man who is good at the violin. I am absolutely sure that I have missed some pretty amazing things such as that in my busy days out as well, but I, obviously, cannot tell you what they would be! I do not know if you are in my discussion group or not, but we were shown a video of extreme inattentional blindness that involved someone asking a random person on the road for directions. When in the middle of the brief conversation, a huge portrait was carried through the two people and the person asking for the directions changed. For example, an older man asked a young women for directions and the old man was exchanged with a young Asian woman, and the lady giving the directions didn't even notice! This video is also on youtube if you are interested. It was extremely entertaining to watch people miss the obvious change.
I saw this video in a previous class and I thought it was fascinating! He is an amazing violinist. However, it'll be difficult to identify who this "homeless man" is if someone did not know him. This was my case when I first watched the video, so I didn't necessarily pay much attention. It's funny how no one recognizes him when he just sold out days earlier. We, as humans, must miss out on a lot during our waking hours!
I also saw this on Facebook and was amazed to see that no one noticed him. I think it is unbelievable that Joshua Bell playing 6 Bach pieces with a 3.5 million dollar violin goes unnoticed by so many people. But at the same time, if I was one of the people that walked by him while he was playing, there is no way I would have stopped to listen. Maybe people need to be more observant so we recognize more things similar to this.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't have noticed him either. If I had liked classical music and known his face? Still, that wouldn't have changed the result, because I wouldn't have expected to see him in public, at the subway station. Here's a daily example. I never notice someone I get to know in one class when I meet him or her in another place. I can't realize there is actually an overlap of two classes between his(hers) and mine until I keep seeing that person in those two different settings. I bet it is not just me, isn't it?
Yeah, I heard about his experience. Actually I saw some more. Anyway, I think we fail to perceive people, movements or something else because we are in hurry and don't expect that things.
In your video, no one never will expect Joshua Bell is playing violin on the street. Thus, even people saw his face, they might think he looks loke Joshua Bell but no one might be certain. I believe most people have experienced that when you were hurry to go to clas, you didn't recognize your close friend and after she/he told you that he saw you then you might notice that. Like this, I think if a person is busy with some tasks, he/she can't do other things. I did multi-tasking experience as participant, it was really hard to do more than two things simultaneously.
I actually heard about this experiment and was surprised, but then again I probably would have done the same. So I totally agree with you that there are possibly so many things we miss in our everyday lives because we are so wrapped up in what were doing. If we took some time to appreciate what was going on around us we would notice some really cool things. It is pretty crazy but I feel people will never get at that stage, because we are always in rush to gt somewhere or busy doing other stuff.
It's incredible how busy we've become that we miss out on so many things. Whether it's a moon walking gorilla or a famous violinist playing Bach in a subway station, we learned to tune out things. I completely missed the gorilla and I'm sure I would not have stopped to listen to Josh Bell either. It's crazy to think how much of the little things we're truly missing out on.
I'm not very familiar with classical music or musicians so I don't really think I would have noticed him either. But, I totally missed the gorilla too when we watched the video. People do miss a lot of the little details that go on in a day. For example, when walking around campus, I am totally tuned out from my surrounds listening to my ipod or talking on the phone, as is almost everyone else.