selective attention test

As a motorcyclist -- and lifelong learner w/ a degree in cognitive psychology -- I really appreciate demonstrations like this one^1 from Daniel Simons. It's a short video (< 90s), but for many first-time viewers, it's an eye-opening experience. ^1. [VIDEO] Edit: just saw @elosarv's link to a longer but more relevant "motorcycle invisibility training" video ( [LINK]

This is sound advice. The only time I've made contact with a moving car as a cyclist was when I was going past an off-ramp. The weird thing was that I thought the driver "saw me". It was late morning, no problem with visibility. From my POV, she was looking right at me. In fact, she was looking "through" me. She simply was expecting other cars and a person on a bike was not what she was looking for. Human attention is very much selective. Check out this shocking video: [VIDEO] After that, I ride with a bright flashing headlight at all times, even daylight. It gives some measure of protection, I think.

It's called Selective Attention which explained in another comment: > Notably, people tend to see what they expect to see. > When they are looking for cars, they tend not to see motorcycles, even when they are in plain view. Watch/take this Selective Attention test (1 min 22 sec): [VIDEO]

However, the argument that multitasking on computers is bad because humans can’t multitask is flawed. That was right in the article itself. I believe the author's point is that focus/attention is more important than being able to "multi-task". Refer to Daniel Simons's experiment (the invisible gorilla) on selective attention. [VIDEO]

I am not sure we even know that normal consciousness is continuous. We experience it that way, but that says nothing. We think our vision is continuous, too, but it isn't ( [VIDEO] . More info at [LINK] (had to use a shortener because the URL gives information away for those who don't know this experiment))

Your video reminded me of this selective attention test: [VIDEO] . This Wikipedia article also seems to be related to the phenomenon and talks about the video too: [LINK] .

> The notion of not knowing why recording sound could be useful to me is hard to grasp as someone who has always been around it. This seems like (from their point of view) the Blub paradox ( [LINK] ), and (from our point of view) something of its converse. From their point of view, they couldn't see the importance of sound recording because they didn't have any existing mechanisms to make use of it. From our point of view, we can't not see the importance of sound recording, because we have so many ways of making use of it. (Kind of like how, once you know the effect being demonstrated in [VIDEO] , you not only no longer experience it, but find it hard to believe that you ever did.)

> You see a handful of lines and text across the screen and it's sufficient to make you go ":o"? Enough to conclude it must be better than a brain? I think he's referring to selective attention. Can't comment on the validity of this "study", but I recall it catching me off guard the first time I saw it. [VIDEO]