The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuition Deceives Us

by Christopher Chabris, Daniel Simons, Dan Woren (Reader)

Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself—and that’s a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we’re actually missing a whole lot.
 
Chabris and Simons combine the work of other researchers with their own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble. In the process, they explain:
 
• Why a company would spend billions to launch a product that its own analysts know will fail
• How a police officer could run right past a brutal assault without seeing it
• Why award-winning movies are full of editing mistakes
• What criminals have in common with chess masters
• Why measles and other childhood diseases are making a comeback
• Why money managers could learn a lot from weather forecasters
 
Again and again, we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions. We write traffic laws and build criminal cases on the assumption that people will notice when something unusual happens right in front of them. We’re sure we know where we were on 9/11, falsely believing that vivid memories are seared into our minds with perfect fidelity. And as a society, we spend billions on devices to train our brains because we’re continually tempted by the lure of quick fixes and effortless self-improvement.
 
The Invisible Gorilla reveals the myriad ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it’s much more than a catalog of human failings. Chabris and Simons explain why we succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. Ultimately, the book provides a kind of x-ray vision into our own minds, making it possible to pierce the veil of illusions that clouds our thoughts and to think clearly for perhaps the first time.
 


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science, Business, Audiobook, Self Help, Sociology

Audio CD

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Christopher F. Chabris is an American research psychologist; currently Senior Investigator at Geisinger Health System; Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, France; and Associate Professor of Psychology and co-director of the Neuroscience Program at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

Reviews

[DailyKaffee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Instead of writing a full review, I'd like to take up some issues with the low-star reviews, which seem to have strong patterns to them that should be adressed. As a disclaimer - I am merely a reader of this book, not a psychological scientist, and I do think negative reviews have their place for ANYTHING that is meant for an audience. And they are important because when reading reviews, you want to know whether the product is something *you* would like to have and may share some of your interests with other reviewers. However, bad criticism based on misconceptions or misunderstandings are worth adressing to be fair to those who are considering the product.


1) "There is nothing new in that." That's actually the worst argument against that book I have come by - yes, psychology has a thing for scientifically and statistically proving things an alert, smart person will already have realized and experienced all on their own. However, that same alert mind that already knew these things in the book were scientifically/statistically true before it even read about them, should also be able to realize that there are a LOT of people around that do not know these things (in the legal system, for example!) - and who should REALLY read that book. This argument is actually the best justification for the book - "I SAW this was true before I read the book, because I see the mistakes the people around me make because of these misconceptions." So, obviously, there is yet some need to have such a book. Also - while many people claim they already knew everything in the book, I wonder whether they really were consciously aware of them.

2) ...but those who need to know about these daily illusions of perception will probably say "the book is boring and I couldn't bring myself to read it", like other reviewers here have said. Fair enough, so popular science lit on the workings of the mind isn't your thing. What does that say about the quality of the book, though?

3) It's popular science lit, moreover, psychology-based where proper objective tests are hard to come by. How do you rate a person's humor? Exactly, you can't - and the authors acknowledge it and clearly mention the problem, yet try as best as they can to find a way to measure the social value "humor" by social standards. Complaining about this strategy is like pointing out a tennis player's lack of skill AFTER he said "Okay, I'll try to hit the tennis ball, but this frying pan just isn't perfect for this sport."

4) The complaint that the authors were wrong because they were contradicted by another author is always to be taken with a lot of skepticism. Welcome to science: We disagree to figure things out all the time, results and conclusions are updated, interpretations differ. I will not claim expertise in the field myself, nor say I can judge who is right and who is wrong, but anyone who read the book should know that even expert opinions are to be taken with skepticism. Why should that not be true (and perfectly normal) for this book and any other book on the topic, may they contradict each other or not - and are these common problems within science really a problem with the quality of the book? I find it difficult to measure how much detailed contradictory opinion should be included in popular science lit and how much would simply be confusing to the reader, or give a false sense of the scale of any disagreement within science. It may be quite justified to differ with the authors' choices on the matter, but the complaints I read in reviews are only concerned with the authors being "wrong", not with their lack of inclusion of contradictory opinions.

5) The book is repetitive. Yes, the book lives on example after example to drive the point home - and obviously, some fields in these examples are not entertaining to all readers. I found the anecdotes engaging, mostly BECAUSE they were all different from each other and took on a variety of directions. If I am personally not interested in stock markets - and I am not -, that's actually my problem, but I do appreciate authors who can take their thoughts in all possible directions to engage different kinds of readers. Also, the authors themselves give a warning about anecdotal evidence in the beginning, and the difficulty of obtaining objective evidence on some topics. (see also point 3). The book's contents reflect that, indeed. Maybe it would have been better to write this book 30+ years from now when the evidence is in, but I am actually glad to have it now.

6) Political direction... I read a review complaining that certain political people receive "excuses" in the book, while others don't and that there may be a political bias in the book. I do not see this political coloration. It merely seemed to me like popular examples were used to drive a point home, nothing more. I also don't agree with the assessment who exactly is "excused" and who isn't.

7) No scientist is ever an expert in a broad field. That includes the authors of "The Invisible Gorilla". But they are often more of an expert than most laypeople are because they do read the scientific literature and discuss it. Expecting a scientist to be that much of an expert that he or she has published scientific literature in all the topics needed to make a good popular science literature book is slightly utopic. The best you can do then is to include a variety of experts, lengthening the author list - but not everyone is interested in writing popular science lit, nor is everyone capable of adapting to a specific style for a specific book.

8) Making a movie for scientific purposes that eventually gets famous on youtube and pops up in a couple of news-sources at some point is not making any scientist popular. Claiming "The Invisible Gorilla" got published because that was the authors' claim to fame is at best a red herring.

Lastly, a brief review of my own: "The Invisible Gorilla" is an interesting glimpse at popular and current psychological science that actually has some interesting implications for our daily lives and understanding of each other and ourselves. Sure, the science seems rather "new" at some point (whereas 'new' in science can mean a few decades of research) and the topic is not easy to come by from an objective standpoint, but it would be a pity NOT to have heard of these phenomena. The authors could have reduced the examples and anecdotes, but as they are all neatly sorted and headlined, it is actually pretty easy for readers to skip anything they do not care for and still find a lot they actually do care for. In any case, this is certainly worth reading and thinking - and more importantly - talking about. Many people fall prey to "everyday illusions", and even if you are aware of them, having some amunitiont to point them out to others could lead to some really interesting conversations and prevent a few daily mistakes in your vicinity.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title of this book was inspired by an ingenious and jaw-dropping experiment that authors Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, both psychology professors, performed a few decades ago. Its result? We don't notice nearly as much as we think we do; in fact, we can be blind to things that are right in front of us. The experiment changed psychology's understanding of perception.

The "invisible gorilla" experiment, and a story about a controversial police beating, anchors the first chapter, which covers the "illusion of attention." The book is meticulously organized, and the chapters that follow each examine a different "everyday illusion," bolstered by compelling examples, experiments, and research, for a total of six. These others are about the illusions of knowledge, confidence, memory, cause, and potential.

This is a thorough and intelligent book that stunned, dismayed, and impressed me all at once. Having read the eye-opening Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average in 2015, I did know that the human mind is much more fallible than we think, but The Invisible Gorilla focuses sharply on the root cause: illusory thinking. The book also, whether intentionally or unintentionally, gets across the idea that reality exists to each of us only insofar as we can perceive it with our senses—senses that are far from perfect.

My only criticism of The Invisible Gorilla is the authors' use of "intuitions" in the subtitle ("How Our Intuitions Deceive Us") and elsewhere when referring to the illusions. With "intuitions," they're talking about automatic and unconscious beliefs that assume we understand and perceive much better than we do; however, "intuition" is commonly interpreted to mean a mystical "sixth sense" or primal "gut feeling." Interestingly, in the final chapter the authors don't claim that intuition deceives us; on the contrary, they acknowledge the usefulness of gut intuition (e.g., in situations that by their very nature depend on visceral judgment). They point out that logical, deliberate thinking not only is not always superior to gut intuition but that it can complicate matters and mislead.

It's hard to argue with Chabris and Simons. They anticipated objections and addressed them. They strengthened their own credibility by emphasizing the importance of performing experiments properly. (The double-blind study is the gold standard and the words to look for when reading science articles reporting on new discoveries.) All of these illusions trip us up and lead us to make mistakes—and truly no one (no matter how smart and detail-oriented they consider themselves) is immune, so it's helpful that Chabris and Simons offered suggestions for how to combat them. Unsurprisingly, reading The Invisible Gorilla is an important first step because just being aware can help—not completely, but certainly more so than if we never learned about them. This is a revelatory and humbling read.

[Ayse_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very easy to read, funny yet interesting book. It follows in the line of books that tell us how and why of things, but based on scientific data.

This one delves into the difference between reality and perception and how taking our own perception for truth (or believing in other`s for that matter) can catapult us so far away from it. The interesting thing is that (and there are many examples of this in the book); our brains are wired that way, which makes it even harder to abide by science than fiction. And even if you abide by science, we see examples of misuse of data and statistics to bend the truth.

So the next time I see a commercial that starts with a story, or someone tries to lure me into buying some idea or thing through their own story, or defends a thwarted causality; I am more equipped.

[CS · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bullet Review:

Fantastic thoughtful book. I think EVERYONE needs to read this, just to remind us that, hey, everybody's got limitations.

Jenny McCarthy, if by some odd chance, you are reading this, I have one thing for you: SHUT UP. Shame on you for deceiving parents into not vaccinating their kids because they MAY get autism - which ISN'T TRUE IN THE SLIGHTEST ANYWAY, but really, autism is WORSE THAN A DEAD CHILD??!?! Do us a favor and go away - after loudly proclaiming what a moron you were for perpetuating this stupid anti-vaccine thing.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating book on one of my very favourite topics: why our brains don't work the way we think they do. If you haven't already, check out this video. I, for one, was one of the people who completely missed the gorilla the first time I saw it. (If you've seen this video already, check out this one. Trust me.) The invisible gorilla video is an example of the first of six "everyday illusions" Chabris and Simons discuss in their book. In the same way that optical illusions trick us into thinking one thing when we're really seeing another, the mental illusions in The Invisible Gorilla trick us into thinking our minds are more capable than they often are. Here are the six illusions:

1. The illusion of attention -- We believe that if something unexpected shows up in our field of vision, we'll notice it. In fact, whether we notice it or not is dependent on what we're focusing our attention on at the time.

2. The illusion of memory -- We believe that if we remember something, especially if we remember it vividly, then that memory is a valid reflection of what actually happened. In fact, memories fade and change over time, and just because a memory is vivid doesn't mean it's accurate. (Fun experiment: Do you remember what you were doing on 9/11 when you found out about the plane crashes? Write it down, and have the people you were with write their memories as well. You might be surprised by the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between memories.)

3. The illusion of confidence -- We assume that someone's confidence reflects their level of skill and ability. In fact, there's not necessarily a correlation, and the people who are worst at some skill are often the most overconfident. We tend to follow and believe people who are very confident, but that doesn't mean these people make the best decisions.

4. The illusion of knowledge -- We think we understand much more about the world around us than we really do. (Fun experiment: do you know how your toilet, zipper, or bicycle works? If you do, ask yourself "why?" a couple of times, and you'll see you don't really know as much as you thought. e.g. Why does the zipper grip the teeth? No clue.) Moreover, because we think we know how complex systems work, we often make predictions and plans that are doomed to fail. (Think about the financial crisis.)

5. The illusion of cause -- We see patterns where there are none, and see causation when there might only be correlation or chronology. Also, once we believe in those patterns and causes, it's extremely difficult for scientific evidence or statistics to sway us. This illusion is why there's a huge anti-vaccination movement in the U.S. right now.

6. The illusion of potential -- We believe that we only use a small portion or a small potential of our brains, and thus we can become much smarter, much faster. This is the reason for the whole "Mozart effect" phenomenon (even though no researchers have replicated the original experiment) and Nintendo's Brain Age. While we can become more skilled at tasks with practice, the idea that there's a "get smart quick" solution is an illusion.

I think this book is fascinating, and I recommend it. If you read it, you'll start seeing these illusions everywhere, which is I think what the authors intended.

[عبدالرحمن عقاب · Rating 5 out of 5]

هذه قراءتي الثانية لهذا الكتاب. وجدته كما المرّة الأولى جميلًا مفيدًا، يتحدّث عن أوهام ستّة نعيش بها نحن معشر البشر. هذه الأوهام هي نتاج عقلنا؛ تخدمه في معاشه اليومي، ولكنّها "تورطه" في حال اتخاذ القرارات.
الكاتبان هما صاحبا التجربة العملاقة التي كانت طريقهما إلى نوبل عن "الغوريلا غير المرئية"، وقد عرضا للأوهام الستة بأسلوب علمي مشوٌّق وجميل، وعرضا لكثير من التجارب والدراسات الداعمة.
يستحقّ الكتاب القراءة، ولقد كان لي سابقًا من الخطوات الأولى "التحفيزية" في طريق اهتمامي ودراستي للتفكير البشري، وأمّا اليوم فقد كان داعمًا لكثير مما رسخ بفضل الله من أفكار وتصورات خلال هذه الرحلة الشيّقة.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a mostly fascinating book which discusses the differences between how we imagine that our minds/brains work and how really do. The authors are the psychologists who did the experiment a decade ago using a movie of two teams of people passing basketballs back & forth between them. They asked people to watch the film and count the number of passes between members of the team in white tee-shirts. Then they asked the watchers if they noticed anything unusual about the film. About half the subjects did not notice that a person in a gorilla suit enters the scene a half minute in, turns to the camera, thumps its chest, then continues off screen again. The gorilla is on screen for about 10 seconds, but half the people missed it!
The books discusses the illusions of:
attention - we think we see more than we do
memory - we don't remember events accurately
confidence - we tend to overly value confidence
knowledge - do we know as much as we think?
cause - does sequence or correlation imply causation?
potential - are there easy ways to 'get smart'?

The book makes its points very well & is full of interesting examples of the illusions and the experiments that show how we fall prey to them.

[Ilgar Adeli · Rating 5 out of 5]

خوندن این کتاب واقعا ضروریه!
دونستن اینکه چطور مغزمون میتونه خیلی ساده به خطا بیوفته میتونه بهمون کمک کنه کمتر تو اون تله ها بیوفتیم
کتاب از شش خطای شناختی جالب حرف میزنه.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've not yet gotten around to reading any of the other psychology books that I've recommended to you yet, consider this one. It's fun, and light, but still pretty good science. The authors do have agendas and so do, sometimes, oversimplify a bit to make a point, but as best as I can tell their points are valid.

Not all are new points. For example they talk about the phenomenon of 'group-think' as if it's something scientists are just figuring out now. Otoh, maybe this time the points will sink in to some readers. For example, a US intelligence agent revealed "a method that his group sometimes used to arrive at a shared estimate for an unknown quantity. The members went around the room, each giving his or her estimate [aloud], in order of seniority." Apparently a similarly ridiculous strategy was part of the problem w/ G.W. Bush and the WMDs (which, you surely know, were never found).

In addition to learning how our intuitions, illusions, and blind spots can fool us (but how they're usually effective strategies and that's why we are so accustomed to using them) and some methods to try to overcome them to arrive at intelligent, well-reasoned decisions, the authors debunk many pervasive myths of bad science.

1. Vaccinations do not cause autism, and letting your kid become a carrier affects those who have no choice but to skip vaccinations, for example kids with leukemia.

2. The worst part of using a cell-phone while driving is not the occupation of your hands, but your attention, and 'hands-free' or Bluetooth is *not* a solution. Just because you can manage the primary task of staying on the road while maintaining a conversation with someone you can't see does not mean you'll be ready for the rare, the unexpected... and it only takes one unexpected event to cause a crash that could be deadly. How many crashes does a distracted driver almost get into, but doesn't because the other drivers are alert? He'll never know, because he's distracted and doesn't notice them.

3. Malcolm Gladwell is not worth reading.

4. Epidemiological studies are *not* a substitute for experimentation, because neither correlation nor chronology equate to causation... headlines like "Bullying Harms Kids' Mental Health" and "Housework Cuts Breast Cancer Risk" certainly do not refer to experiments with a single variable, random sampling, and a control group. Also, one can always imagine other explanations for the 'results' of an epidemiological analysis. Next time you want to stock up on the latest 'superfood' or fitness equipment, consider alternative explanations that could explain the results of the research.

5. Confidence often occurs in a reverse r'ship to competence. As the adage goes, 'the more I learn, the more I realize how ignorant I am.' Confidence appeals to patients who want god-like doctors, to readers of business journals who want to emulate the brash leaders who currently at the top of their game, to competitors who have been coached to have a 'winning attitude,' but I would rather have a doctor admit that she wanted to look something up before offering a diagnosis, and I'd rather learn to be a leader or a winner from somebody who's willing to think through strategies, take reasonable risks, listen to input, and acknowledge that random chance ('luck') is very often a factor in success.

6. Journalists and others don't need to lie to convince us of cause & effect. If they can reveal sequence in story form, we "tend to remember a narrative better when we have to draw such inferences" ourselves. We "form a richer and more elaborate memory."

7. Brain training games improve our ability to play brain training games. The skills almost never transfer sufficiently widely to be a good use of time. The best exercise for our brains is physical exercise, even a several brisk walks a week help more.

etc.

Yes, the humor example, cited in several other reviews, sucks. But there are plenty of other reasonable studies and experiments.

Frustrating that the notes are so extensive. End notes for bibliographic info. is fine. But. If there's more information than you can manage to incorporate into the text, please put the notes at the end of each chapter or use footnotes. The constant flipping was driving me nuts.

I do want to investigate a book mentioned: Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart. And I want to check out the video-game Rise of Nations, listed (but not touted, but still...) as a slow-paced strategy game, possibly good for seniors.

But gosh, I've read so much psychology lately, I think it's about time I take a break and let the science make some more breakthroughs and for books to be written about them. Shouldn't take too long at the rate they're going.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished this book much more aware of how limited my mental abilities are. And that's a good thing. As Chabris and Simons state in the conclusion, these mental illusions "result from mistaken judgments about our limitations." If we are willing to acknowledge and accept those limitations we are that much more aware of the illusions and better able to see through them.

Chabris and Simons discuss several commonplace, everyday illusions which the vast majority of us are not only unaware of, but actively believe don't exist. The illusion of attention explains why driving while talking on a cell phone is dangerous and why hands-free sets aren't any safer than hand-held phones - and why so many people talk on their cell phones anyway. The illusion of memory is one I've run across in my own life several times - our memories change over time and even those details of which we are completely sure can be shown to be wrong when compared to others' memories or a video of the event, so how reliable are they, really?

The illusion of confidence has interesting implications for group dynamics and frightening consequences for those accused of crimes by eyewitnesses absolutely sure of what they saw - and absolutely wrong. The illusion of knowledge was particularly striking to me. We don't know what we don't know because "we rarely bother to probe the limits of our knowledge." We assume because we use a toilet everyday that we know how and why one works, but our ability to explain the "whys" breaks down much more quickly than we think it will.

The last two illusions were the weakest chapters for me. After the first four chapters full of interesting revelations about the way the mind works, the illusion of cause was almost disappointing just because it wasn't new. Every high school science class covers the fact that correlation does not mean causation, though there are many people who still have trouble grasping that concept even if they pay lip service to it. Chabris and Simons use the obvious example of the MMR vaccine and autism, complete with references to Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield, to demonstrate this illusion.

The last illusion addressed in the book is the illusion of potential. In my mind, this boiled down to people want simple, guaranteed formulas for weight loss, fading memory, and smart children and so they believe that this pill or mental exercise or Disney DVD will do it for them. Didn't seem all that surprising or earth-shattering to me.

They close the book with only a few suggestions for combating these illusions in the reader's life. First, after a few swipes at Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, "be wary of your intuitions." And second, "You can make better decisions...if you do your best to look for the invisible gorillas in the world around you." In other words, after reading this book you'll be more cognizant that you may not have seen all there is to see, you may not remember exactly what really happened, and you may not know as much as you think you do, especially if you're too confident. Hopefully with that knowledge you can "proactively restructure" your environment (i.e., don't talk on a cell phone while driving and don't assume someone is lying if they misremember what exactly happened at a given event) to take these illusions into account.

The book provides fascinating insights into how the mind works versus how we think it works, and that awareness is valuable in itself. But I would have appreciated a few more suggestions on counteracting these illusions besides "be more aware," "use technology," and "trust science." If goodreads did half stars, this would be a 3.5.

For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.

[drowningmermaid · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some pretty major flaws in the experiments he lists as "proof" of his points.


-Deciding whether a person has a "good" or "bad" sense of humor-- based on whether their ratings of jokes correlates with 30 professional comedians? Seriously? Isn't it obvious that the people who score "poorly" are just the kind of people who don't go to comedy clubs, or find the dumb jokes on TV funny?

-There ARE a variety of ways a chess player can be underscored in the ratings. (Although, it is true that 100 points worth of overconfidence is a wide disparity.)


Overall, though, it's a fun refutation of Malcolm Gladwell, and a good overview of logical thought.

[Zsa Zsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think this is a must read. i had started questioning the way things are even before finding this book but when i did and when i started reading it showed me in how many ways human knowledge is limited, so i think this is one of the books that literally made me a better person.
it's a must read for everyone.

[Gofita · Rating 5 out of 5]

The authors conducted a experiment a while to see how many people would see something right in from of them while focused on another task. People were asked to watch a video. They were instructed to count the number of passes of a basketball between a few people. After the video they asked them how many passes they counted and if they had seen anything strange while watching the video. About half said they had not. But a person in a gorilla's costume passed through the screen and pounded its chest and then left the screen on the other side. How could so many people miss something that was right in front of them?

Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, both psychologists, set out to understand the illusions that we are constantly susceptible to and how we can become more aware and thus less susceptible to these illusions in our daily lives.

1. The illusion of attention. "When people devote their attention to a particular area or aspect of their visual world, they tend not to notice the unexpected objects, even when those objects are salient, potentially important, and appear right where they are looking." p.6-7

2. The illusion of memory. Are memories are not like DVDs that we can playback at will. Our memories distort over time and change. "Beware of memories accompanied by storong emotions and vivid details--they are just as likely to be wrong as mundane memories, but you're less likely to realize it." p.79

3. The illusion of confidence. We tend to overestimate our own qualities, especially our abilities relative to others. This also causes us to interpret the confidence--or lack thereof--that other people express as a valid signal of their knowledge, and of the accuracy of their own memories.

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." p.86 quoted from Charles Darwin.

"...people embrace certainty and reject tentativeness, whether in their own beliefs and memories, the counsel of an adviser, the testimony of a witness, or the speech of a leader during a crisis." p.94

Confidence appears to be a personality trait, has little to do with one's underlying knowledge or mental ability.

4. The illusion of knowledge. We mistake familiarity of an object for genuine knowledge. Draw a bicycle from memory. Do you have every gear, every which way the bike works. Can you show and explain how each piece functions to get the bicycle going? How about a toilet? Play the why game and see where the gaps in knowledge start coming...after one why, two?

5. The illusion of cause. Our brains like to see patterns even when they're not there. One of the reasons we're so good at faces. We like to see faces in almost everything. We also tend to believe that earlier events cause later events. And we also like to find evidence that confirms our pre-existing beliefs.

When two events tend to happen together ,we infer one must have caused the other. But the only way to definitively test whether an association is causal is to run an experiment. Correlation does NOT imply causation.

6. The illusion of potential. This leads us to think that vast reservoirs of untapped mental ability exist in our brains, just waiting to be accessed--if we only knew how. This combines two beliefs: first, that underneath it all the brain harbors higher potential to perform better in various situations, etc and second, that we can release this potential with simple techniques that can be easily implemented.

There is no Mozart effect. It will not make your baby smarter.

"...there is no known way to measure a person's 'brain capacity' or to determine how much of that capacity he or she uses...when brain tissue produces no activity whatsoever for an extended time, that means it is dead." p.199

"The brain's potential is vast, and you can indeed tap into it, but it takes time and effort." p.212. Looks like learning and deep knowledge are all possible but it still takes practice, practice, practice, and more practice.

And walking a few hours a week is also a great way to keep your brain in shape, especially for cognitive tasks like multitasking and planning.

Everyday illusions...all make us think that our mental abilities and capacities are greater than they actually are...we confuse how easily our minds can do something with how well they are doing it. p.230

Intuition tells us that we pay attention to more than we do, that our memories are more detailed and robust than they are, that confident people are competent people, that we know more than we really do, that coincidences and correlations demonstrate causation, and that our brains have vast reserves of power that are easy to unlock...[they] are wrong..." p.230-231

"Be wary of your intuitions, especially intuitions about how your own mind works...in many cases, intuition is poorly adapted to solving problems in the modern world." p.241

"Take any opportunity you find to pause and observe human behavior through the lenses we've given you. Try to track your own thoughts and actions as well, to make sure your own intuitions and gut-level decisions are justified. Try your best to slow down, relax, and examine your assumptions before you jump to conclusions.

When you think about the world with an awareness of everyday illusions, you won't be as sure of yourself as you used to be, but you will have new insights into how your mind works, and new ways of understand why people act the way they do. Often, it's not because of stupidity, arrogance, ignorance, or lack of focus. it's because of the everyday illusions that affect us all. Our final hope is that you will always consider this possibility before you jump to a harsher conclusion." p.242

Mind-altering book for sure. I will be looking at this one again and again!

[J.D. Steens · Rating 1 out of 5]

The authors once conducted an experiment where people were asked to count basketballs while another person walked through their field of vision, unnoticed, dressed as a gorilla. The authors concluded that there was an illusion of attention ("inattentional blindness"). They expanded this notion to write this book about the illusions of memory, confidence, knowledge, causal relationships, and potential. Their lesson from all of this is that we need to be wary of our intuitions as they are poorly adapted to the modern world. "Think twice," they advise, "before you decide to trust intuition over rational analysis...."

It's not clear what's new here. Learning to drive a car, we're advised to look twice before turning into traffic to catch what we missed the first time. We're told to pay attention to the car in front because looking is not the same thing as seeing. Concentration on a task will exclude extraneous data. That's the point (and beauty) of concentration. Ask people not to count basketballs and you might get a very different result. As for the other illusions, the problems of selective and false memory have been known for years. Wise people have cautioned forever against false confidence, and about holes in our knowledge and causal logic.

As for the remedy, the authors advise the readers to trust rational analysis over intuition. Intuition may have worked in our primal days, they say, but is no longer adequate in these modern days. That advice certainly pertains to, say, pilots being trained to trust their instruments over intuition. But in people relationships, which still largely populate what we do and how we do them, we might be better off by relying less on rational analysis and paying more attention to what our non-rational intuitions are picking up. The arched eyebrow can convey a truer meaning than a rational sentence.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because I was already familiar with the hidden gorilla experiment demonstrating inattentional blindness, I initially assumed this book would be a rehash. But it delivered a more detailed study of the illusion of attention and six other illusions, and turned out to be an informative source of information on hidden human behavioral patterns. This are:

(1) Illusion of Attention—although we think we see what’s in front of us, focus and expectation leads us to often miss the unexpected, even when it is salient, potentially important, and appears right where they are looking.
(2) Illusion of Memory—we mistakenly believe that our memories are accurate and precise.
(3) Illusion of Confidence—causes us to overestimate our own competency and erroneously interpret it as a valid signal of other people’s competence.
(4) Illusion of Knowledge—people tend to think they know more than they do.
(5) Illusion of Cause—people often see patterns where they don’t exist, wrongly assume correlation
implies causation, and wrongly assume earlier events cause later ones.
(6) Illusion of Potential—belief that we have a vast untapped brain reservoir (10% myth) that can be easily accessed with simple techniques (e.g., Mozart effect, subliminal messaging, etc.)
(7) Illusion of Intuition—the popular and seductive belief that intuitive methods of thinking and making decisions are superior to analytical methods.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly interesting book! The title refers to the well-known online video in which viewers are urged to count the number of passes made by one basketball team. At one point in the video, a person in a gorilla costume walks through the scene, but many viewers are so busy tracking passes that they don't notice. This book is about some of the hidden biases in the way our brains cope with the world. At least some of these will probably shock many readers. While it's probably impossible to eliminate these perceptual quirks altogether, simply being aware of their existence may help people gain a truer picture of the world. A fascinating book, well worth reading.

[عمر الحمادي · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب مهم جداً يستطيع إخراجك من الأوهام، وهم الذاكرة، وهم السبب، وهم التزمن، وهم المعرفة الخ الخ... فقط تخلى عن الأفكار المسبقة وضع أقوال حزب المؤامرة جانباً.

[Dr. Tobias Christian Fischer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erinnerungen verändern sich: Gefühle und Erwartungen arbeiten zusammen, so dass die Situation anders abgespeichert und verändert wird.

Selbstüberschätzung hilft ein starkes Selbstbewusstsein ausarbeiten. Das ist einerseits gut, aber kann auch zu Fehlern führen. Kompetenz heißt auch nachschlagen zu dürfen.

Sicherheit des Benutzens: Beispiel sind Fahrräder und viele überschätzen sich. Oder kannst du ein Fahrrad adhoc richtig malen?

[Maher Razouk · Rating 5 out of 5]

في كتابهم الممتع (The invisible gorilla) يعدد عالما النفس (كريستوفر تشابريس و دانييل سيمونز) بعض حالات الوهم التي تساعد الإنسان في حياته أو أحيانا تكون عقبة أمام نجاته أو تقدمه ...
إحدى هذه الحالات تسمى (وهم السبب) ، و هي ببساطة تنشأ لكون دماغ الإنسان متعود على رؤية الأنماط و التتابع في جميع أشكال الحياة و الوجود حوله ، و هذا ما ساعده في علاج الكثير من الأمراض وكذلك في مجال الأعمال و السياسة . لكن هذه العادة لدى الدماغ تمنعه من رؤية العشوائية أحيانا ، فيرى فيها انتظاما و يبحث عن سبب لها ، و إن لم يجد سببا ، فإنه يخترعه ، لكي تتحول الصدفة إلى مجرد نتيجة متوقعة لأحداث متتالية ، فيسهل فهمها !!

يذكر العالمان مثال على ذلك رؤية وجه (مريم العذراء) أو (المسيح) أو اسمهم في بعض الفواكه أو قطع الخبز أو تجمع غيوم في السماء . فيقولان : الدماغ متعود على تمييز الوجوه و هو يتوقع أن يرى وجوها في كل شيء ينظر إليه ، لذلك فإن أي شكل قريب من الوجه البشري يجعله يخدع ببساطة بوهم السبب المذكور سابقا !!
و هذا يفسر أيضا كيف أن قصص العودة من الموت التي حدثت في بعض المستشفيات ، أو ما يسمى (near death experience) ، غالبا ما تكون متشابهة ، و غالبا ما يصدقها الناس بسبب تشابهها ، رغم أن ذلك ليس سوى وهما . فالدماغ يرى غالبا ما يتوقعه ، عندما يواجه العشوائية أو الصدف أو الأحداث الغير قابلة للتفسير !!
لذلك من الطبيعي جدا أن تتشابه القصص ، لأن الدماغ ، عندما يواجه هذه المواقف الغريبة ، يعمد إلى أقرب التفسيرات الممكنة و أكثرها ترسخا فيه، و التي هي غالبا : المعتقدات الشعبية أو الدينية !!

#Maher_Razouk
#ماهررزوق

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is nonfiction and it falls into the psychology genre. I found this one interesting. He used the study where many observers of one group could NOT see the chest thumping gorilla right in front of them. The brain is so remarkable in doing the task that is at hand that it can sometimes filter out the obvious.

I listened to the audio and not once did this feel like a high school science class. So woohoo for that. I liked this. It gave me something to think about, so 4 stars.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

So...this book got published because it's by a pair of celebrity scientists (not to say that that affects their other work, but I think it effected the book).

The problem that I see with it, generally, is that they have a very interesting set of experiments about what they call attentional blindness and the illusion of attention. I.e. the reason that a bunch of people didn't notice a gorilla (well, someone in a gorilla suit) walk through a crowd of students passing around basketballs, and why people are really surprised that they would miss the gorilla just because they're paying attention to something else in the video.

Now, generally, I won't complain about that, clearly the authors know a thing or to. But their book is about 5 other illusions as well (five other chapters) to deal with. And though the authors have vague fingers in those other illusions, they aren't experts. This was driven home to me on a few occasions where I could spot some significant (and not so significant but chapter beginning) problems.

The second chapter is about the illusion of memory - basically the idea that our memories aren't as trustworthy as we think they are. Which is fair enough and true (and something I was already aware of--I might be less critical if I didn't know about it). But they make mistakes about so called flashbulb memory, our more vivid memory, and more accurate memory, of shocking situations--the reason we can all say where we were and what were we doing on 9/11. Chabris and Simons actually claim that flashbulb memory is just as faulty as any other memory. While I am not an expert, I did read an expert on the subject right before this book. James L. McGaugh, who wrote Memory and Emotion, while not the expert on flashbulb memory is the expert on why flashbulb memory comes into play--basically that heightened stress works a lot like repetition in solidifying long term memories.

Now, I'll say this for Chabris and Simons; their job is to tell people that the accuracy of our memories is an illusion, so their focus is on reminded us of that. But that doesn't mean they need to exaggerate that innaccuracy, to confuse the inaccuracy of normal memory with well ingrained memory. While McGaugh doesn't deny that flashbulb memories are imperfect, but he does have numbers for how accurate those memories are and can tell us when the memories will be more or less accurate.

So yeah, that bugged me.

Shortly after a section on how technobabble and scientific-ese can be used to say nothing but sound good, they opened the next chapter with a nothing explanation of why 'Measles is among the most infectious virus affecting children,' implying that this is because 'When a person with measles sneezes, another person can contract the disease just by breathing the air in the room or touching a contaminated surface.' The problem is that that's pretty much true of a lot of viruses. Influenza, cold viruses for a start.

And I do have a bit of a problem with their own subject, the inattentional blindness. They argue that driving while talking on a hands free cellphone is just as dangerous as talking on a handheld cellphone. And while it might be more dangerous than we realize, the authors are awfully quick to dismiss one handed driving as having NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on our ability to steer sharply and quickly, say, if we need to maneuver to avoid an accident. "We can drive just find with one hand on the wheel" Which is true, under normal circumstances when we just need course corrections. But sharper more sudden turns need more control.

And while they conducted an experiment to show that handsfree cellphone conversations can distract us and cause us to miss unexpected objects, their rather blithe in assuming that our ability to detect a red cross on a computer screen that subjects thought only had black and white letters is comparable to our ability to detect objects that are effectively speeding at us in a danger situation.

(Maybe I was just ornery about their earlier idiocy, and tending to be somewhat unfair, but it's a problem. Considering that they talk about experiments using driving simulations, couldn't they do that here?)

The book had its good points, but I'm just too annoyed to mention them.

Edited:
I also forgot that the inconsistency on confidence - at one point they say that our confidence varies (not directly) with our skill and a few pages later they quote studies that our confidence is more or less constant.

Second, I forgot (and this is my favorite) that they use studies which say that there are universal measures of comedy. There is a right and wrong judgment on which jokes are funnier than ever. Hilarious joke. Oh, wait, they're serious? They don't realize that people have different tastes in humor? What's that, you can disagree on what dramas are better than others, but comedy is only rated on an absolute scale that you must adhere to?

[Kate Woods Walker · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's a decent-enough structure behind this book--six mental bugaboos to avoid--but the authors' obvious right-wing biases weakened their presentation.

It's true enough (as this book notes) that correlation does not equal causation, but sometimes correlation can point the way to a workable hypothesis.

So here are a few things I noticed about this book. People and things who received positive spin in The Invisible Gorilla: George W. Bush, Chief Justice John Roberts, Jim Cramer, the Iraq War. People who were the subjects of disapproving or snide remarks: certain members of Barack Obama's cabinet, Chris Matthews, Hillary Clinton, Malcolm Gladwell.

Enough to prove a bias? Maybe, maybe not. But certainly enough to convince me I'll not be seeking out further writings from these authors.

This review is a slightly reworked version of my original review, which was accidentally deleted.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

i definitely didn't see the gorilla... it is worth the read.

[Mahsa Rami · Rating 5 out of 5]

به نظر من خوندن این کتاب ها واقعا لازمه امتیاز کامل هم دادم چون خیلی بیشتر از دانسته های قبلی به من اطلاعات خوب داد.
گوریل نامرئی درمورد شیش خطای ادراکی مغز ما انسان هاست که روزانه با بعضی هاش درگیریم ولی اطلاعی ازش نداریم
خیلی جالبه
وقتی با کتاب و مثال ها پیش میریم متوجه چیزهایی میشیم که تا قبل از اون خیلی چیزی ازش نمیدونستیم شاید حتی کلا اطلاعایی نداشتیم.
خیلی روان و ساده با مثال های زیاد مارو از خطاهای ادراکی آگاه می‌کنه .درسته در زندگی عادی و حقیقی ما نمیتونیم خیلی جلوی این خطاهارو بگیریم اما آگاهی ازشون به نظر من لازم بود.
«همه آن‌ها این تصور را در ما ایجاد می‌کنند که توانایی ها و ظرفیت های ذهنی‌مان بیشتر از چیزی است که واقعا وجود دارد. در همه موارد ،ما راحت انجام دادن کارها توسط ذهنمان را با درست انجام دادن آن‌ها اشتباه می‌گیریم.»

حالا ذهن من سعی می‌کنه بین مسائل و اتفاقات روزمره دنبال گوریل های نامرئی هم باشه.

[Jessi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book looks at the things we think we know, but really don't. There are Illusions of Attention, Memory, Confidence, Knowledge, and Potential. Each of the illusions is examined, with examples shown of the differences between what we think happens and what really happens.
Attention-Everyone believes that we see everything that happens in the world around us. This is where the famous Invisible Gorilla video comes into play. Check it out. This is just one example of selective attention. We only pay attention to the things we're told to look at. Another example given is when radiologists missed a problematic guidewire after a surgery even though it was prominent in all of their X-Rays. They were only looking for heart problems. We also have inattentional blindness (this is inevitable when we focus on a difficult problem) which can lead us to missing things we don't expect to see. Proof of this is the fact that automobile accidents involving pedestrians and bicycles rise in areas where pedestrians and bicyclists aren't often found. Drivers don't expect to see them, so they don't actively look for them.
Memory-Overwhelmingly, people believe that our memories work like DVDs. We can just watch something over and over in our minds without anything ever changing. We also believe that eyewitnesses are some of the best evidence for convicting people. However, it has been proven time and time again that even the best eyewitnesses can be mistaken. Even experiments tracking people’s memories of traumatic events (the Challenger exploding, 9/11) show that the further you get from the event, the less likely you are to remember specific details. The authors even throw in their own memories as proof.
Confidence-The most confident people are the ones who know their subjects best, right? Wrong. We have been taught to trust the people who seem the most confident but there is rarely a correlation to those who are the most competent. This is why con men are so darn good at getting away with things. They just appear to be confident in their knowledge and no one asks any questions.
Knowledge-Do we really know how the world works? Or we just think we do. The first example given by Chabris and Simons is to think about how a bicycle works. Almost everybody knows that. But try to explain to a five-year-old why moving pedals gets you from here to there and it gets harder to say that you really know what is going on when you hop on a bike. One subset of the Illusion of Knowledge is the Illusion of Cause. We often assume that because two things occur together, there must be a direct cause and effect when often there is a third (or even more) item that may be causing both. The most well-known of these studies is the supposed rate between autism and the MMR vaccine.
Potential-Another illusion is that of potential wherein we believe that the human brain has untapped potential if we only use the right key to unlock it. This belief has lead to the rise of “brain exercise” games. However, it’s interesting to note that recent research has proven that physical exercise may actually play more of a role in how well our brain is faring.

Parts of this book directly address (and refute) Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink wherein the author pushes us to accept our intuition and “go with our guts.” These authors would argue that we should know when we should trust our intuition and when more analyzing would be more beneficial.

Readalikes: Even though the authors dismiss parts of his work, I still think that Malcolm Gladwell’s books are worth reading.

[Devika · Rating 5 out of 5]

To their credit, Chabris and Simons are IG Nobel Prize winners and this book is highly recommended by academics. Since the focus of this book is cognitive psychology and its applications in daily life, I couldn’t help but contrast and compare it with Thinking Fast & Slow.

Invisible Gorilla explains the six illusions that plague us, which involve illusions of
• Attention: Our moment-to-moment expectations, more than the visual distinctiveness of the object, determine what we see and what we miss.
• Memory: This further involves
o ‘failure of source memory’ i.e. the information retrieved from memory is more like an improvised riff on a familiar melody rather than a digital recording of an original performance
o ‘flashbulb memory’ i.e. an emotionally significant event vividly recalled which makes us confuse the fluency of the memory with its accuracy
• Confidence: Perceiving higher confidence as a benchmark for greater ability
• Knowledge: Our inflated belief in what we know
• Cause: confusing two similar trends as one causing the other, whether the events occur simultaneously or sequentially.
• Intuition: Highly trusting instincts over rational analysis

However, Kahneman & Tversky highlighted the heuristics or rules of thumb by which we process information. They include:
• Anchoring: Being swayed by irrelevant information presented prior to making a decision.
• Availability: Our tendency of making judgments on the frequency of an event basis ease of recall.
• Representative: making judgments basis a comparison with something else in mind or treating a small sample as a representative of the entire group.
• Regression to the mean: Within the context of psychology, regression to the mean describes our tendency to make biased predictions about the future, i.e. believing in a constant upward or downward trend rather than realising that performance eventually returns to the mean.
• Hindsight bias: our tendency to look back at past events, adjust our worldview to accommodate the surprise and hold the position that “I-knew-it-all-along.”

The illusion of memory can be linked to the availability heuristic and the hindsight bias. We retrieve a self-doctored memory, which makes us believe in a certain frequency of an event basis how easily we can remember it. And this memory can be self-doctored when one looks back at, for example, surprising political elections and technological innovations and reframes one’s wrong predictions to match reality.

The myth of intuition is similar to the System 1 – System 2 analogy of Kahneman & Tversky. Our reflexive system 1 is what gives us the ‘gut feeling’, however this feeling may not be reliable in situations where one has no prior experience. ‘Gut’ is to be followed more credibly in areas where, due to hours of practice, one has developed pattern recognition skills.

However, the other four illusions – attention, confidence, knowledge, and cause – are different from heuristics.

One surprising element is the lack of any mention of Thaler and Sunstein’s ‘nudge’ theory.

But, this book is very palatable for anyone interested in cognitive psychology. More importantly, it proves that our imperfections are not only due to our limitations but also our mistaken judgments about them.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arguably a popular classic in its time - the title derives from one of the most familiar and widely-discussed experiments of the modern era, my experience is that it merits the hype and is well worth the (not terribly great investment of) time.

As non-fiction accessible psychology goes, this goes down easy, entertains throughout, sprinkles the serious (almost hard core) academic stuff (particularly the critique and methodology) with splendid, memorable anecdotes, and provides more than your money's worth in terms of food for thought and more-sophisticated-than-not useful self help nuggets.

I'm glad I read it, I found plenty to lend support to important points I try to make in the classroom, and I recommend it for readers ranging from the leisurely curious to serious academics.

[Angie Boyter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading after many years for The Sunday Philosophers bookgroup.
I enjoyed it as much the second time around. There is a great deal of fascinating information ad citations of the top names in their fields, and it accomplishes this iwth an enjoyable easy-to-understand writing style.

[Overbooked ✎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book about about six illusions that influence our lives: the illusions of attention, memory, confidence, knowledge, cause, and potential. These illusions sway our perceptions and decisions everyday, slipping under the radar of our awareness.

Some of the fallacies and debunked widespread myths exposed by this book:

• believing the testimony of a confident eye witness (even highly vivid memories can be unreliable)
• driving while using a hands free phone is fine (not true, highly dangerous)
• confident people are competent people, e.g. prefer a confident doctor (false, see quote)
• people can feel others staring at them behind their backs (not true)
• our brains have vast resources of untapped power, e.g. most people use only 10% of their brain (untested and also not provable)
• mind control via persuasive subliminal messages, e.g. in advertising (false)
• the Mozart effect, i.e. listening to Mozart’s music improves brain capabilities (false)
• cognitive games (e.g. Brain Age) can help in memory and other brain functions (false, training tends to be specific to the task that is trained for and is not transferable to other cognitive tasks).

It’s not all negative news, though, here a surprising truth:

• Seniors who had walked for just forty-five minutes a day for three days each week preserved much more gray matter in their frontal brain regions than did those who had done stretching and toning. Aerobic exercise actually did keep their brains healthier and younger. It might seem counterintuitive, but the best thing you can do to preserve and maintain your mental abilities may have little to do with cognition at all.

Overall I enjoyed this, the author’s arguments are clearly expressed and persuading, the book is, however, rather dry.

Fav. Quotes:

We will almost never be aware of the more subtle evidence of our distraction. Drivers who make mistakes usually don’t notice them; after all, they’re distracted. The problem is that we lack positive evidence for our lack of attention. That is the basis of the illusion of attention. We are aware only of the unexpected objects we do notice, not the ones we have missed. Consequently, all the evidence we have is for good perception of our world. It takes an experience like missing the chest-thumping gorilla, which is hard to explain away (and which we have little incentive to explain away), to show us how much of the world around us we must be missing.

Unfortunately, people often confuse what is easily noticed when it is expected with what should be noticed when it is unexpected.

If we are right that inattentional blindness results from inherent limits on the capacity of visual attention, it might be impossible to reduce or eliminate it in general. In essence, trying to eliminate inattentional blindness would be equivalent to asking people to try flying by flapping their arms really rapidly. The structure of the human body doesn’t permit us to fly, just as the structure of the mind doesn’t permit us to consciously perceive everything around us.

The best doctors show a range of confidence—they admit when they don’t know and are more confident when they do know. Doctors who willingly consult people with greater knowledge than their own are likely to provide much better care than those who think they can handle any situation on their own.

Everyday illusions tell us that we perceive and remember more than we do, that we’re all above average, and that we know more about the world and the future than is justified. Everyday illusions might be so persistent and pervasive in our thought patterns precisely because they lead us to think better of ourselves than we objectively should. Positive illusions can motivate us to get out of bed and optimistically take up challenges we might shrink from if we constantly had the truth about our minds in mind.

Neuroscience research is showing that the plasticity of the adult brain—its ability to change in structure in response to training, injury, and other events—is much greater than previously believed. The illusion is that it is easy to unlock this potential, that it can be discovered all at once, or that it can be released with minimal effort.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a psychology book so I could read it without necessarily following the order of the chapters. I basically read all of the bits that I found to be interesting and to my surprise it was pretty cool (and of course insightful) as it explores the complex human brain and behaviour, and the incredible way our memory works.