All videos on this site are available solely so that individuals can view examples from our experiments.

The videos are copyrighted and may not be downloaded, saved, copied, or used for any other purpose.


Many of the videos on this website are available on a DVD presentation tool distributed by VisCog Productions, Inc. This Surprising Studies of Visual Awareness DVD is the only form in which any of these videos are distributed, and it may be used for teaching, presentations, workshops, etc. To learn more (or to order), visit www.viscog.com.


To view these videos, you will need a recent web browser with javascript active and a recent version of Apple's QuickTime software (you can download it here). Some of the videos are are contained in Java Applets. To view those videos, you will need to have a Java player installed on your computer and you will need to have Java active in your browser.

A person change video
       This video was used as a stimulus by Levin and Simons (1997). In this video, one actor changes into another actor across a cut. In general, naive observers notice such changes about 30 percent of the time. For this particular video, the noticing rate is somewhat lower. Note that although the two actors are globally similar in appearance, they are wearing noticeably different clothing.
            1.1 MB quicktime movie

Changes across cuts in a motion picture
       This video was used as a stimulus by Levin and Simons (1997). In this video, a number of features change each time the camera cuts to a different position. Pay particular attention to the clothing, the objects on the table, and the positions of the actors' arms. The video contained 9 intentional changes (plus a couple that we hadn't intended). Of the 10 naive observers who viewed this film, only 1 claimed to notice a single change. That is, out of a possible 90 detections, only 1 was noticed (and that one was imprecisely described). Even when people intentionally search for changes in this video, they tend to notice fewer than 2 of the 9 changes on average.
            4.5 MB quicktime movie

A subject in a real-world person change event
       These videos show a subject witnessing a "person change" in studies reported by Simons and Levin (1998). In this clip, an experimenter approached a pedestrian to ask for directions. While the pedestrian was providing directions, two additional experimenters rudely passed between the initial experimenter and the pedestrian. During this brief interruption, the original experimenter was replaced by a different person. Even though the two experimenters looked quite different and had distinctly different voices, approximately 50 percent of the subjects failed to notice that they were talking to a different person after the door passed. Interestingly, those who noticed tended to be from the same social group (students) as the experimenters, and those who failed to notice tended to be older than the experimenters. To explore this in-group/out-group effect, we conducted a second experiment in which the same two experimenters were dressed as construction workers. By making the experimenters members of an outgroup for the younger subjects, we were able to reduce noticing from close to 100 percent to only 35 percent. Note that these videos are *not* available on the "Surprising Studies of Visual Awareness" DVD.
            3MB Java Applet from the original Door study
            3 MB Java Applet from the construction worker Door study

Gradual changes to scenes
       These videos were used as stimuli by Simons, Reimer, & Franconeri (2000). Observers viewed photographs of natural scenes and actively searched for changes. The change occurred gradually over a period of 12 seconds. The compression necessary to put these videos on the web may produce some visual artifacts that were not in the original displays. Even though the change was visible if you knew where to attend, a large number of these changes went unnoticed. The studies suggest that a visual disruption is not needed to produce change blindness.
            300k quicktime movie in which an object is added or deleted.
            200k quicktime movie in which an object is added or deleted.
            1.2 MB quicktime movie in which an object is added or deleted.
            700k quicktime movie in which an object is added or deleted.
            900k quicktime movie in which an object is added or deleted.
            200k quicktime movie in which an object changes color.
            250k quicktime movie in which an object changes color.

Sustained inattentional blindness -- selective looking
       These videos were used as stimuli in Simons & Chabris (1999). Gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28, 1059-1074. These videos are based on earlier studies by Neisser and colleagues (the first one below). Subjects were asked to monitor one of the teams of players by counting the number of passes they made. After about 45 seconds of performing this task, an unexpected event occurred. In all versions, many observers failed to see the change. For more details about this study, visit the lab page and look under inattentional blindness.
            5.2 MB Java Applet original Neisser et al umbrella woman event.
            5.5 MB Java Applet umbrella woman from the Simons and Chabris replication
            5.5 MB Java Applet opaque umbrella woman from Simons and Chabris.
            7.5 MB Java Applet opaque gorilla from Simons and Chabris.

Sustained inattentional blindness -- luminance
       Quicktime versions of videos used as stimuli by Most, Simons, Scholl, Jimenez, Clifford, & Chabris (2000). In this task, observers performed several trials in which they counted how many times one set of objects touched the sides of the display window (e.g., they might count the total number of times that the black objects bounced off the sides). Each trial lasted for 15 seconds. On the third trial, an unexpected object appeared from the right side of the display and moved across the display, remaining visible for 5 seconds. Noticing of this object was largely determined by the similarity of this unexpected object to the attended and unattended items. Observers could attend to either the white or black items. For more details about this study, visit the lab page and look under inattentional blindness.
            1.5 MB or smaller 360k quicktime movie with a black unexpected object.
            1.5 MB or smaller 360k quicktime movie with a white unexpected object.
            1.5 MB or smaller 360k quicktime movie with a grey unexpected object.

Sustained inattentional blindness -- distance
       Quicktime versions of videos used as stimuli by Most, Simons, Scholl, & Chabris (2000). In this task, observers performed several trials in which they counted how many times one set of objects contacted a horizontal line through the center of the display (e.g., they might count the total number of times that the black objects touched the line). Each trial lasted for 15 seconds. On the third trial, an unexpected object appeared from the right side of the display and moved across the display, remaining visible for 5 seconds. Noticing of this object decreased as the object's path was further removed from the central line. That is, when the unexpected object was farther from the central line, fewer observers noticed it. For more details about this study, visit the lab page and look under inattentional blindness.
            1.5 MB or smaller 360k quicktime movie with the unexpected object moving on the ine.
            1.5 MB or smaller 360k quicktime movie with the unexpected object moving near the line.
            1.5 MB or smaller 360k quicktime movie with the unexpected object moving farther from the line.
            1.5 MB or smaller 360k quicktime movie with the unexpected object moving as far as possible from the line.