The Invisible Gorilla

In an award-winning and groundbreaking study, psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons asked volunteers to watch a 60-second film of a group of students playing basketball and told them to count the number of passes made. About halfway through, a woman dressed head to toe in a gorilla outfit slowly moved to centre screen, beat her chest at the camera, and casually strolled away. Unbelievably, almost half of the volunteers missed the gorilla. Insightful, witty, and fascinating, THE INVISIBLE GORILLA is a fascinating look at the unbelievable, yet routine tricks that your brain plays on you.

Christopher F. Chabris and Daniel J. Simons won the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology for Gorillas in Our Midst. Chabris is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Union College in New York. He was formerly a Lecturer and Research Associate in the Psychology Department at Harvard. Simons is a Professor Department of Psychology and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois. Both authors have had research published in top scientific journals with extensive media coverage worldwide.