Posted by noa on January 24, 2004, at 9:58:29
In reply to Re: ADD: helpful techniques for Hyperfocus, posted by Interject79 on January 23, 2004, at 23:40:07
Yes, good question.
BTW, did anyone see the piece on one of the recent news magazines about how we are blind to things right in front of us when we are hyperfocused on something else? I wish I could remember which show I saw it on. It featured an experiment by a researcher who showed a videotape to people, of a bunch of people milling around and passing a ball around. There are people wearing white and people wearing black. The pre-viewing instruction was that they are going to have to report how many times a ball was passed among the people in the video who are wearing white. OK, so we, the TV viewers also do the experiment. It was pretty freaky, but while you are watching the video and focused on seeing and remembering how many times the ball was passed around by the people wearing white, something happens that you totally don't see. When they play back the tape in in slow motion, you can see it--it is a person in a gorilla suit walking onto the scene, standing there in plain sight for a while and then walking around again. They show the tape yet another time at regular speed, and it's clear as day--there is the guy in the gorilla suit! But I did not see it at all the first time, because of being hyperfocused on the counting.
It was very cool. I wish I could find the story on line. I looked at ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and can't find it. I also looked at Harvard's website because I think the researcher was at Harvard.
poster:noa
thread:304395
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040123/msgs/304955.html