Inattentional Blindness

by Arien Mack, Irvin Rock

Many people believe that merely by opening their eyes, they see everything in their field of view. In Inattentional Blindness, Arien Mack and Irvin Rock make the radical claim that there is no conscious perception of the visual world without attention to it. The phenomenon of inattentional blindness has theoretical importance for cognitive psychologists studying perception, attention, and consciousness, as well as for philosophers and neuroscientists interested in the problem of consciousness.

Genres: Philosophy

287 pages, Paperback

First published March 25, 1998

Reviews

[Michael Silverman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is more of a text book for people interested in visual perception and cognitive psychology. The foundation of the work demonstrates that conscious perception requires focused attention. More specifically that visual attention is the gateway to conscious perception and that without attention, our representations of the visual world are extremely volatile. Indeed, despite the common folk belief in, and the ‘‘subjective impression’’ of, a coherent and richly detailed world, the empirical research described in this text demonstrates that we actually perceive much less of the world than we think we do.

[TK Keanini · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned about this book from Temple Grandin's "Animals in Translation". I am always trying to answer the question "How do we not see, what we do not see?" This book is filled with important findings in the area of human understanding.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was perfect for what I bought it for.