# How do you ruin King Kong for a cognitive psychologist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 11, 2013, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967 "2013-02-11T13:49:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/1 "2013-02-11T13:49:48Z")
Have him count the number of times the basketball is passed. ---
**Author:** ![ReticulatingSplines](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@ReticulatingSplines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReticulatingSplines)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/2 "2013-02-11T14:04:43Z")
Wow, finally an esoteric quip I understand. Yay for useless undergrad degrees! ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/3 "2013-02-11T15:30:08Z")
Heh. That’s a cute one. ---
**Author:** ![YourAdHere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/65b543/32.png) [@YourAdHere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YourAdHere)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/4 "2013-02-11T15:38:28Z")
Hahaha! What a jolly good laugh. I know I certainly enjoyed it, but would someone mind explaining this for those OTHER poor fools who do not understand. ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/5 "2013-02-11T15:41:27Z")
[Invisible gorilla test.](http://www.livescience.com/6727-invisible-gorilla-test-shows-notice.html) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/6 "2013-02-12T12:50:12Z")
There actually was a point to this joke. I was inspired by a report I heard on NPR yesterday morning. Apparently they did a “gorilla in the room” experiment on radiologists. They wanted to see if their concentration on looking for particular features of x-rays effectively blinded them to obvious problems that thwey _weren’t_ concentrating on. So they doctored some x-rays so that they had a gorilla superimposed on them and asked the radiologists to look for cancerous nodules. Okay, I made that up – they didn’t really put a pictuire of a gorilla on the x-ray. That would be stupid and too literal. They put other features on for them to miss. Actually, I didn’t make it up. _They superimposed a picture of a gorilla on the x-ray_. See?: > **[Why Even Radiologists Can Miss A Gorilla Hiding In Plain Sight](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/02/11/171409656/why-even-radiologists-can-miss-a-gorilla-hiding-in-plain-sight/)** > > An attention researcher wanted to find out how radiologists would fare in a version of the famous Invisible Gorilla study. He found that 83 percent of the radiologists failed to spot an image of a gorilla on slides they were told to inspect for... According to the report, 83% of the radiologists missed the gorilla, which is worse than the 50% of the people watching the basketball videotape. I’d be skeptical, but when I glanced quickly over the picture while reading the article, I didn’t see it, either. When I mentioned this to my wifde, Pepper Mill, who’s a Dental Assistant, she wasn’t vsurprised. She told me about a case wghere she looked over the shoulder of a doctor looking at a head x-ray of a patient with headaches, and asked him if it might be due to the four impacted wisdom teeth she saw on the x-ray. He hadn’t noticed them. Regarding the original gorilla experiment – I’ve heard the old canard that if someone tells you not to think of a purple giraffe, you find it impossible not to. What if you repeated the gorilla experiment, only with a purple giraffe waloking through the scene – after you hsad told the subject not to think of a purple giraffe (then told them to count the basketball passings). Would this be like the “unstoppable force meets irresistable object” of cognitive psychology testing? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/7 "2013-02-12T14:50:14Z")
bump ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/8 "2013-02-12T15:32:24Z")
Damn! I’m beginning to think humans just have a hard time seeing gorillas? What if there are gorillas in this room right now?!! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/9 "2013-02-12T15:36:46Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Damn! I’m beginning to think humans just have a hard time seeing gorillas? What if there are gorillas in this room right now?!! Stop counting basketball passes and LOOK, then! ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/10 "2013-02-12T15:39:01Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Damn! I’m beginning to think humans just have a hard time seeing gorillas? What if there are gorillas in this room right now?!! Gorillas in the midst, even? ---
**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/11 "2013-02-12T18:11:48Z")
Good lord, it took me 2 minutes to see the damn thing, and I’m looking for it. It’s a good thing I’m not your doctor. I understand they need to be very fosse about these things. Assuming the studies are over, will these films be recycled so they can get the silver back out of them? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/12 "2013-02-12T18:22:11Z")
> [@ducati](#): > > Good lord, it took me 2 minutes to see the damn thing, and I’m looking for it. > > It’s a good thing I’m not your doctor. I understand they need to be very fosse about these things. > > Assuming the studies are over, will these films be recycled so they can get the silver back out of them? “Well, THERE’S your problem – you’ve got a gorilla lodged in your lung.” Very “fosse”? Are Doctors choreographrers?To be anthropoid experts they’d have to be Fossey. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/13 "2013-02-12T18:39:17Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Damn! I’m beginning to think humans just have a hard time seeing gorillas? What if there are gorillas in this room right now?!! They’re very adept at camouflage–stealth maneuvers are a key element of gorilla warfare. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2013, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/14 "2013-02-12T19:11:31Z")
> [@ducati](#): > > It’s a good thing I’m not your doctor. I understand they need to be very fosse about these things. > > Assuming the studies are over, will these films be recycled so they can get the silver back out of them? You are awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/15 "2013-02-13T00:20:01Z")
How would those radiologists have responded if the researchers had put a horse into the pictures? Would they have spotted those? How would those radiologists have responded if the researchers had put a zebra into the pictures? Would they have spotted those? ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/16 "2013-02-13T01:11:19Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > How would those radiologists have responded if the researchers had put a horse into the pictures? Would they have spotted those? > > How would those radiologists have responded if the researchers had put a zebra into the pictures? Would they have spotted those? They probably would have looked for unicorns. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/17 "2013-02-13T02:15:46Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > How would those radiologists have responded if the researchers had put a horse into the pictures? Would they have spotted those? > > How would those radiologists have responded if the researchers had put a zebra into the pictures? Would they have spotted those? If you want the animal spotted, you should probably go straight for a leopard. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/18 "2013-02-13T02:29:36Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > How would those radiologists have responded if the researchers had put a horse into the pictures? Would they have spotted those? > > How would those radiologists have responded if the researchers had put a zebra into the pictures? Would they have spotted those? Would they have spotted owls? ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/19 "2013-02-13T02:31:08Z")
“Bad news I’m afraid Bob…your Gorilla has lung cancer.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967/20 "2013-02-13T02:35:59Z")
I remember reading an account by an umpire who was calling one of his first games. He didn’t want to make any mistakes so he was really focusing on whether or not the ball passed through the batter’s strike zone. The first pitch was outside the zone so he called “Ball.” The catcher turned around and said “What the hell are you talking about? That was a strike!” The umpire wanted to make it clear he wasn’t going to allow players to challenge his calls, so he said, “I’m not going to argue about it. It was outside the strike zone and that’s that.” The catcher said, “Maybe so but he swung at it.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-ruin-king-kong-for-a-cognitive-psychologist/649967.md?page=2)