The Invisible Gorilla

Daniel Simons and Christopher F. Chabris are cognitive psychologists who have won awards for their work on a variety of themes. Their "Gorillas in Our Midst" study reveals the dark side of our ability to pay attention and has quickly become one of the most well-known experiments in psychology; it inspired a stage play and was even discussed by characters on C.S.I. Chabris, a psychology professor at Union College in New York, received his Ph.D. from Harvard. Simons, a Cornell Ph.D. recipient, is a psychology professor at the University of Illinois.

Reading this book will make you less confident in yourself, which is a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, the founders of one of psychology's most renowned studies, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, utilize incredible stories and paradoxical scientific findings to show a crucial truth: our minds don't work the way we believe they do. We believe we see ourselves and the world as they truly are, yet we are actually missing a great deal.

Chabris and Simons use the work of other researchers as well as their own studies on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to show how incorrect intuitions frequently lead to problems. They explain in the process: "Why would a firm invest billions of dollars to market a product that its own experts predict would fail? How a cop might walk right past a horrible assault without noticing it Why are award-winning films riddled with editing flaws? What criminals and chess experts have in common Why are measles and other childhood diseases resurfacing? Why investors may learn a lot from weather forecasters?"

We repeatedly believe we are experiencing and comprehending the world as it is, but our minds are plagued with everyday illusions. We design traffic laws and construct criminal cases on the notion that people will notice when something out of the ordinary occurs right in front of them. We're certain we remember where we were on 9/11, mistakenly believing that vivid recollections are perfectly etched into our minds. And as a culture, we spend billions of dollars on brain-training technologies because we are constantly enticed by the promise of quick solutions and effortless self-improvement.

The Invisible Gorilla exposes the numerous ways in which our intuitions can deceive us, but it is much more than a list of human flaws. Chabris and Simons describe why we fall victim to ordinary illusions and what we can do to protect ourselves from their consequences. Finally, the book delivers an x-ray glimpse into our own minds, allowing us to see beyond the veil of illusions that clouds our thinking and think clearly for the first time.

Author: Daniel Simons and Christopher F. Chabris

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307459667/

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars (from 778 reviews)

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