Individual differences in susceptibility to inattentional blindness

Strayer, David L. · 2010 · PsycEXTRA Dataset

DOI: 10.1037/e520592012-017

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Summary

This study investigates the cognitive mechanisms underlying individual differences in susceptibility to inattentional blindness (IB), a phenomenon where individuals fail to notice unexpected stimuli despite them being in their direct line of sight. While previous research established that large percentages of people exhibit IB, the reasons for variability among individuals remained unclear. The authors hypothesized that working memory capacity (WMC), which serves as a proxy for attentional control, modulates this susceptibility. Specifically, they tested whether individuals with higher WMC would be less susceptible to IB because they possess greater attentional resources to maintain primary task goals while simultaneously monitoring the environment for unexpected events. The researchers conducted an experiment with 306 undergraduate participants, who were assessed using an automated operation span (OSPAN) task to measure WMC. Participants were categorized into low, medium, or high WMC groups based on their performance. They then viewed the classic Simons and Chabris (1999) basketball video, instructed to count bounce and aerial passes made by one team. An actor in a gorilla suit appeared unexpectedly during the video. To ensure valid comparisons, the analysis focused on participants who were "on-task," defined as those who achieved at least 80% accuracy in their pass counts. Participants who failed to meet this accuracy threshold or who had prior knowledge of the IB paradigm were excluded from the final analysis, leaving 197 subjects. The results replicated the general finding that 42% of naïve participants failed to notice the gorilla. Crucially, among participants who were on-task with the counting requirement, susceptibility to IB varied significantly by WMC group. Individuals in the low WMC group exhibited the highest rate of inattentional blindness (64%), followed by the medium group (48%), and the high WMC group (35%). Statistical analysis confirmed a significant linear association between higher OSPAN scores and a decreased probability of IB for on-task participants. However, for participants who were off-task with their pass counts, no relationship existed between WMC and susceptibility to IB, indicating that task compliance is a prerequisite for observing these individual differences. The study concludes that individual differences in attentional control, as measured by WMC, are a primary mechanism explaining variability in susceptibility to inattentional blindness. The findings suggest that individuals with higher WMC have sufficient residual attentional resources to spontaneously detect unexpected stimuli while maintaining primary task goals. This resolves discrepancies in previous literature that failed to find such relationships, likely due to insufficient control for task compliance or the use of less sensitive cognitive measures like processing speed. The results imply that WMC is a critical factor in understanding how attention is allocated in complex, real-world environments.

Key finding

Higher working memory capacity reduces susceptibility to inattentional blindness, but only when participants successfully maintain the primary task goal.

Methodology

lab_experiment

Sample size: 306

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via openalex_abstract on 2026-05-08 (9 acquisition events logged).

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• inattentional change blindness
• cognitive capacity variation