. If we are not paying attention or specifically…
. If we are not paying attention or specifically looking for something, that thing is easy to miss. This concept is beautifully illustrated in The Invisible Gorilla by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons.
— from The Instruments (Awareness/Perception/Expectations)
In the book
It does not. If you are not actively paying attention — not specifically looking for a thing — that thing is astonishingly easy to miss entirely; whole planes slide through a sky you are staring straight into. So the first discipline is simply the choice to be aware at all, because in every moment you are free to think, or to not bother, or to actively avoid thinking, and that choice is far more yours than you let yourself believe. […] The mindset first: trust the panel over the feeling, and remember always that you are seeing a reading, not reality. Scan wider than feels necessary. What you are not actively looking for, you will simply miss; so deliberately look where you do not naturally look, assume there is a plane in the blind spot until you have checked, and keep choosing attention over drift, because that choice is always yours. Learn, too, what to stop attending to — awareness is as much about what you ignore as what you watch. — The Instruments (Awareness/Perception/Expectations)