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Thread: UFOs and Inattentional Blindness

  1. #1

    UFOs and Inattentional Blindness

    Back in 2005, I, and an immigrant Asian family of three gazed up in awe, on a street corner, at a humongous UFO triangle that was seen in broad daylight hovering silently over the shores of Lake Erie. But the reason why I'm bringing this up is because I've always been perplexed that the person in the car that drove by at that time of the sighting, did not stop to look at that thing too as it was very much in clear view for anyone on that street.

    Well, one possibility on why that person in that car did not seem to notice that UFO occurred to me a few days ago when I read about that man who was calmly mowing his lawn while a monster of a tornado could be seen out in the near distance. Here's a photo of that which made its rounds in social media...



    There are also reports that a few cars were driving by on a road not far from that twister seemingly oblivious to it also. They were going about their daily business as if nothing was happening at all.

    But there's a name for this type of behavior and it's called 'inattentional blindness' which is the failure to notice a fully-visible, but unexpected object because attention was engaged on another task, event, or object. (wiki)

    Moreover, I'm not ruling out cognitive dissonance either; especially in the case of UFOs. IOW's, someone who does not believe in UFOs may not 'see it' at all when one shows up because their conscious mind would have blocked it out. And in some cases, inattentional blindness would have played a part in that kind of response to a UFO too.


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  2. #2
    Here's an excellent article that talks about 'inattentional blindness' and the type of personality that may be more prone toward that kind of response in various situations.
    https://theconversation.com/people-w...omment_1300478

    Seeing things that others miss

    Another well-known perceptual phenomenon is called inattentional blindness. People experience this when they are so focused on one thing that they completely fail to see something else right before their eyes.
    In a famous illustration of this perceptual glitch, participants were asked to watch a short video of people tossing a basketball to one another, and to track the total number of passes between the players wearing white.




    During the video, a person in a gorilla costume wanders into centre stage, indulges in a little chest-beating, and then schleps off again. Did you see it? If not, you are not alone. Roughly half of the 192 participants in the original study completely failed to see the costumed figure.
    But why did some people experience inattentional blindness in this study when others didn’t? The answer to this question came in a recent follow-up study showing that your susceptibility to inattentional blindness depends on your personality: open people are more likely to see the gorilla in the video clip.
    Once again, it seems that more visual information breaks through into conscious perception for people high in openness — they see the things that others screen out.
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  3. #3
    Here's a hilarious video of something called 'change blindness' which is another form of 'inattentional blindness'. It's very short and worth a watch. A man is giving directions to someone and watch what happens next... lol

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  4. #4
    I found this thread fascinating in the extreme!!

    My compliments A99!

    In my very first post here http://www.theoutpostforum.com/tof/s...ha-one-and-all I detailed a daylight siting over Camelback mountain.

    There were approximately five other people who saw this UFO at the same time as well.

    What I didn't write about, because I could never really understand it, was the 'inattentional blindness' component to it.

    As I and a group of guys (4 - 5), stood there staring at this, occasionally a person or two would walk by as we were directly outside of the cafeteria.

    On several occasions one of us would call out to the passerby and point the UFO out and ask "WTF do you think it is"?

    While it's been too long to remember the exact number, I do recollect several people glancing up momentarily then simply shrugging and saying "I dunno" as they walked off, uncaring.

    I was almost as amazed at their reaction as I was by the UFO.
    Last edited by Wansen; 06-08-2017 at 01:20 AM.

  5. #5
    Well, there you have it!
    Thanks so much for your feedback on this. Nice to know that someone else here can relate to what I'm talking about in this thread and have witnessed on a first hand basis this type of perceptual phenomenon in some people who were there during your sighting of a UFO.
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  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by A99 View Post
    Well, there you have it!
    Thanks so much for your feedback on this. Nice to know that someone else here can relate to what I'm talking about in this thread and have witnessed on a first hand basis this type of perceptual phenomenon in some people who were there during your sighting of a UFO.
    My thanks for bringing up the topic.

    Its helped me understand a bit something that has puzzled me to this day.

    How so many can simply ignore reality.

    I'm occasionally jealous at the ignorant and blissful; not quite sure what went wrong with me.

  7. #7
    Senior Member earthman's Avatar
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    Love that door study.. lol. That was good..

  8. #8
    Lead Moderator calikid's Avatar
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    Beyond Inattention & Change blindness, I once heard a story about Christopher Columbus arriving in the new world.
    When he walked onto the beach and talked with the Natives, it was said the Natives were UNABLE TO SEE the large sailing ships anchored in the bay.
    The ships were so far removed from anything the Natives had experienced before, they were UNABLE TO SEE THEM.
    The reining Shaman was able to see the ships, and after a few days of discussion and explanation, the other natives began to see the ships as well.

    Related in a couple of interesting shows: "Brain Games" (from NatGeo) and "What the @#$#% Do We Know".
    No idea if the story is true, or simply a parable. But an interesting concept that could also explain why spectators sometimes ignore an unusual item.
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  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by calikid View Post
    Beyond Inattention & Change blindness, I once heard a story about Christopher Columbus arriving in the new world.
    When he walked onto the beach and talked with the Natives, it was said the Natives were UNABLE TO SEE the large sailing ships anchored in the bay.
    The ships were so far removed from anything the Natives had experienced before, they were UNABLE TO SEE THEM.
    The reining Shaman was able to see the ships, and after a few days of discussion and explanation, the other natives began to see the ships as well.

    Related in a couple of interesting shows: "Brain Games" (from NatGeo) and "What the @#$#% Do We Know".
    No idea if the story is true, or simply a parable. But an interesting concept that could also explain why spectators sometimes ignore an unusual item.
    If this is true IMO, it is quite telling and perhaps a bit ironical that this would be just a few short days after Columbus' own documented (ship's log) UFO siting.

  10. #10
    As far as I know, that story is true and I recall one of my prof's talking about it when I was enrolled in a post-grad psychology program (Art Therapy)


    Here's another one... There's a common visual phenomenon/deficit experienced by jungle natives when they first venture out of the forest and are told to look at a tree seen at a distance across a large spanse of flat grassland. The jungle dwellers could not see that tree because they never experienced seeing objects at a distance like that. Therefore, to them, the tree didn't exist regardless that all of the non-jungle dwellers in the group could see that tree as clear as day.
    Last edited by A99; 06-09-2017 at 01:19 PM.
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