Influence of mental load on inattentional blindness

Pages: 1681-1684
Ridhima Duggal and Srishti Arora (Department of Psychology, (North campus), University of Delhi, New Delhi)

Inattentional blindness is a term that was proposed by Mack and Rock (1992) who defined it as “a situation in which an unattended stimulus is not perceived, even when the person is looking directly at it” (Goldstein, 2002). Studies have demonstrated that there are several causes of IB and one of the aspects on which it dependent is the mental load of a cognitive task. When the intellectual load of a task tends to increase, processing ability of the individual with respect to the visual stimuli decreases. This then leads to a reduction in their ability to detect various stimulus and events. Keeping this view in mind, a study was designed to assess the influence of mental load on inattentional blindness. For this, a video that was used in the study of inattentional blindness conducted by Simmons and Chabris (2010) was selected. An experimental design was used in the study wherein forty participants were assigned randomly into two groups, control and the experimental. A manipulation existed in the experimental group in which they had to remember and recall a number series along with the other tasks presented in the video. The results of the study indicated that the control group outperformed the experimental group. This group was more likely to identify the irrelevant stimuli (Gorilla, change in colours of curtain, reduction in players of black team) than the experimental group.