If you’re a Boing-Boing reader, no point in trying — you know what’s in this video and it won’t work. But if you aren’t, then watch this video once, paying careful attention to how many times the balls are passed between people. Count ’em up. Make sure you get the exact number of passes.
Then click and see what to do next. DON’T read this until you’ve counted up the exact number of passes.
Watch the video a second time, paying no particular attention to the passes. Just watch and see what happens. Yes, that’s a person in a gorilla suit, whom you did not notice walk across the screen.
I knew about it when I saw the video, and so noticed it right away. But I tried it out on Lime, who was unsuspecting, and she didn’t see the gorilla till the second time.
Here’s why, and here’s the Boing-Boing link where I found this.
I thought the point was something akin to one of those paragraphs where you have to count the “s”s or something, and so was entirely focused on the balls. But I still noticed the gorilla!
Yay, I usually never get things like that. Took me a few days to figure this one out for instance:
http://www.chessbase.com/puzzle/christmas2004/chr04-6a.htm
(Don’t worry, it’s not a chess puzzle)
Hee… how can you know what he was dreaming, let alone what he was dreaming at the precise moment at which he was pinched? :)
(It’s a viewpoint problem. I betcha any serious fiction writer would catch it immediately or almost immediately. We’re trained to catch ourselves doing it, is why.)
:) (Answer whited out, select if you are dying to know, as per James’ request I not spoil it.)
Hooray for change blindness! It took me two reads to get the story about the grandfather. Here’s one that I found a bit harder:
http://nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/ECS/kayakflick.gif
Gord, don’t spoil it for everyone! :)
James,
Good point. I fixed it.
Tristan,
That kayak image IS hard. Took me a couple of minutes of staring.
I noticed the gorilla, but I was certain I’d fail the quiz because the gorilla distracted me from counting the passes :) Your prompt to count the passes gave me an idea to prepare for a math quiz. And from what the article says about the positive relation of math to processing visual information perhaps that’s why I noticed the gorilla right off. Then again, I’m terrible at math. Fun quiz, the grandpa one too.
My brother-in-law sent me this link, it looks like you’ve discovered another viral meme…
Well, anything on Boing-Boing is almost guaranteed to be a meme. (Though when I was on Boing-Boing I didn’t become one. But I was just a name in a list that time.)
Man, I must be incredibly perceptive today or something. I caught the gorilla even as I was counting the passes. I also figured out James’ puzzle on the first read through. And the kayak gif took me about ten seconds, which was about how long it took me to figure out that I was supposed to be looking for a difference between the flashes.
I think I should take advantage of of this mental clarity and try to get some work done before my brain turns to mush again. :)
Yes, go do some work.
(I should note it took me a couple of minutes with the kayak image because I was staring at the clicking waiting for something to load so I would know what to try figure out. But even when I realized what was going on, it took me longer than it did you.)