ArticleCognitive research: principles and implications2023
The invisible 800-pound gorilla: expertise can increase inattentional blindness.
Article in Cognitive research: principles and implications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Foundational principles for young intensivists to drive better outcomes: palliative care.Critical care science · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
People can fail to notice objects and events in their visual environment when their attention is engaged elsewhere. This phenomenon is known as inattentional blindness, and its consequences can be costly for important real-world decisions. However, not noticing certain visual information could also signal expertise in a domain. In this study, we compared professional fingerprint analysts and novices on a fingerprint matching task in which we covertly placed an image of a gorilla into one of the prints. This gorilla was either small, or large, but always embedded in a way that made it largely irrelevant to the primary task. We found that analysts were more likely than the novices to miss the large gorilla. We interpret this finding not as a flaw in how these experts make decisions, but most likely an expression of their expertise; instead of processing more information they filter out irrelevant information and constrain their attention to what is important.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.