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The invisible gorilla revisited: using eye tracking to investigate inattentional blindness in interface design

Published: 29 May 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Interface designers often use change and movement to draw users' attention. Research on change blindness and inattentional blindness challenges this approach. In Simons and Chabris' 1999, "Gorillas in our midst" experiment, they showed how people that are focused on a task are likely to miss the occurrence of an unforeseen event (a man in a gorilla suit in their case), even if it appears in their field of vision. This relates to interface design because interfaces often include moving elements such as rotating banners or advertisements, which designers obviously want users to notice. We investigated how inattentional blindness affect users' perception through an eye tracking investigation on Simons and Chabris' video as well as on the web site of an airline that uses a rotating banner to advertise special deals. In both cases users performed tasks that required their full attention and were then interviewed to determine to what extent they perceived the changes or new information. We compared the results of the two experiments to see how Simons and Chabris' theory applies to interface design. Our findings show that although 43% of the participants had fixations on the gorilla, only 22% said that they noticed it. On the web site, 75% of participants had fixations on the moving banner but only 33% could recall any information related to it. We offer reasons for these results and provide designers with advice on how to address the effect of inattentional blindness and change blindness in their designs.

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Cited By

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  • (2024)The distracting effect of mobile phones on visual attention in consumer decision-making: a gaze behavior perspectiveThe International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research10.1080/09593969.2024.231968834:2(160-182)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2024
  • (2021)Adaptive Folk Theorization as a Path to Algorithmic Literacy on Changing PlatformsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34760805:CSCW2(1-38)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
  • (2021)To See or Not to SeeProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/34481235:1(1-25)Online publication date: 30-Mar-2021
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  1. The invisible gorilla revisited: using eye tracking to investigate inattentional blindness in interface design

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      AVI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces
      May 2018
      430 pages
      ISBN:9781450356169
      DOI:10.1145/3206505
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Published: 29 May 2018

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      Author Tags

      1. change blindness
      2. eye tracking
      3. inattentional blindness
      4. interface design
      5. perceptual load
      6. selective disregard

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      AVI '18
      AVI '18: 2018 International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces
      May 29 - June 1, 2018
      Grosseto, Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy

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      AVI '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 19 of 77 submissions, 25%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 128 of 490 submissions, 26%

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      View all
      • (2024)The distracting effect of mobile phones on visual attention in consumer decision-making: a gaze behavior perspectiveThe International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research10.1080/09593969.2024.231968834:2(160-182)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2024
      • (2021)Adaptive Folk Theorization as a Path to Algorithmic Literacy on Changing PlatformsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34760805:CSCW2(1-38)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
      • (2021)To See or Not to SeeProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/34481235:1(1-25)Online publication date: 30-Mar-2021
      • (2021)Shaping Concrete for InteractionProceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3430524.3440625(1-11)Online publication date: 14-Feb-2021
      • (2020)Addressing Inattentional Blindness with Smart Eyewear and Vibrotactile Feedback on the Finger, Wrist, and ForearmProceedings of the 19th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia10.1145/3428361.3432080(329-331)Online publication date: 22-Nov-2020

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