Why Even Radiologists Can Miss A Gorilla Hiding In Plain Sight

[Fumesucker]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/11/171409656/why-even-radiologists-can-miss-a-gorilla-hiding-in-plain-sight

<snip>

Drew wondered if somehow being so well-trained in searching would make them immune to missing large, hairy gorillas. "You might expect that because they're experts, they would notice if something unusual was there," he says.

He took a picture of a man in a gorilla suit shaking his fist, and he superimposed that image on a series of slides that radiologists typically look at when they're searching for cancer. He then asked a bunch of radiologists to review the slides of lungs for cancerous nodules. He wanted to see if they would notice a gorilla the size of a matchbook glaring angrily at them from inside the slide.

But they didn't: 83 percent of the radiologists missed it, Drew says.

This wasn't because the eyes of the radiologists didn't happen to fall on the large, angry gorilla. Instead, the problem was in the way their brains had framed what they were doing. They were looking for cancer nodules, not gorillas, so "they look right at it, but because they're not looking for a gorilla, they don't see that it's a gorilla."

<snip>

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I sure didn't see it either.

[demwing]

2. When I saw it, it was if it had suddenly appeared

like a curtain drawing back, and bingo - angry gorilla man

[cleanhippie]

3. Have you seen The Invisible Gorilla Experiment?

Imagine you are asked to watch a short video (above) in which six people-three in white shirts and three in black shirts-pass basketballs around. While you watch, you must keep a silent count of the number of passes made by the people in white shirts. At some point, a gorilla strolls into the middle of the action, faces the camera and thumps its chest, and then leaves, spending nine seconds on screen. Would you see the gorilla?

http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html

[littlemissmartypants]

4. This is an interesting post but I would need to see

this research repeated with a very large n for me to see it as anything other than an excuse for bad medicine. I not only see the gorilla I heard it cry foul. Love, Peace and Shelter. lmsp

[Fumesucker]

5. I don't think the study was about medicine at all

The study was about how our perceptions are very strongly shaped by what we are looking for and what we expect to see. A radiologist does not expect to see a gorilla on the x ray he is examining so as far as her perceptions are concerned the gorilla simply isn't there even when it actually is there.

To a large extent we see the gorilla because we're *not* radiologists.

[littlemissmartypants]

6. How do you know I am not a radiologist?

An easily fooled physician would not be a very good caregiver, imho.

[Fumesucker]

8. Everyone is easily fooled

Some are just more easily fooled than others.

Start watching how many DUers are taken in by satire if it's not labeled.

[littlemissmartypants]

7. Maybe I am just a wierdo

because I intentionally paradigm shift when analyzing all the time to broaden my perceptions, intentionally. At first I didn't see the monkey BECAUSE I WAS LOOKING FOR TUMORS.............. see how crazy that is?