Beware of the Gorilla: Effect of Goal Priming on Inattentional Blindness

When people pursue a goal, and particularly when this goal requires an attention consuming activity, they often are blind to unexpected events occurring in their environment. This phenomenon is called “inattentional blindness”. In this study, we examine inattentional blindness in regard of goal priming. After being primed (or not) with a detection goal participants watched a short sequence in which they had to count passes made by basketball players. An unexpected event occurred during the video (a gorilla walked over the game area). Results suggest that goal priming can improve the detection of an unexpected event, particularly when attentional demands of the monitoring task are not too high. Implications in the understanding of nonconscious management of attention will be discussed.