Spot Rare Occurrences More Frequently by Lessening Inattentional Blindness
Abstract
Inattentional Blindness is the human condition of not perceiving an event that is rare or unexpected, even though it is in full view. This research tests the hypothesis that inattentional blindness to rare events can be lessened by increasing the frequency of rare events (thus making the events less rare). Our test domain is security. We videotaped actors in a building, and java-coded a test instrument simulating a contemporary multi-frame surveillance camera with a controls to allow response to on-screen events. We found that inattentional blindness dropped between the control group and the group with the maximum number of surprise events, although the number of false positives detected rose also. We found that additional thought time allotted to each surprise event did not lower inattentional blindness, but increasing the number of surprise events to attend to lowered main task performance somewhat. We did not find a correlation between individual differences such as age or gender and inattentional blindness level, nor did we find a correlation with the previous night s sleep. However, we did find a correlation between inattentional blindness and the location of the event on the viewing monitor.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 29, 2013
- Accession Number
- ADA601393
Entities
People
- Judith Gelernter
Organizations
- Carnegie Mellon University