Wow, 1978, huh? Like I said in the post, Jeff Sexton had written about a similar experiment from the Visual Cognition Lab, but that one was in 1999.

Looks like they repeated the experiment with a bear in 1999 instead of a girl with the umbrella (’78) and got the same result.

Thanks for writing in to share!

It was worth a good laugh.

Soeren: You’re referring to Reverse Psychology, which, as you point out, is a tactic used to elicit an opposite response. This example is sort of like that, but from a behavioral observation perspective. It just shows that if we’re paying attention to something else, it’s pretty stunning what we can miss in the background. We think we’re good multi-taskers, but we’re not. Our sense of what’s real and important is framed by the context we, and others, apply to it. Sort of like how driving while talking on a mobile phone has been shown to be roughly as dangerous as driving drunk. (Not sure how most NYC cabbies missed that one.)

“Multitasking” is for computers, not humans. Or bears.

The brain multi-tasks. The mind… not so much.

There’s a psychology phrase stating that the brain can’t thing in negative terms.

That’s why telling a kid “don’t play with matches!” will give the exact opposite result, as they’re left with one clear and precise image in their head: Them playing with matches