CCA DR Blog Post #4

I saw 16 passes (although there were only 15) and I saw the gorilla (out of the corner of my eye).

In trying to identify which kind of bias might be illustrated by this experiment, I've come to the conclusion that maybe the general design of the video/experiment is the bias. It seems as though the designers of the experiment probably already had a general idea about the kind of results they wanted to achieve, particularly because the video was made by a visual cognition lab, and set up a test that was biased towards achieving those results. I'm not sure how much truth is in this statement, but I was recently told that the only studies that have been done on cell phones and the effects they have on the human body have been conducted by cell phone companies. Of course the conclusions of a study like that are going to lean in favor of cell phone companies so that they can continue to sell their product unimpeded, which leads me to believe that a test designed by a visual cognition lab might already have a bias designed into their experiment to help support their research. They probably already had a theory and then designed a test to support that theory.