Two psychologists, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, thoroughly debunk the 10 percent brain mumbo jumbo in their wonderful new book, "The Invisible Gorilla."
This is not a sports book. But it is a terrific book for anyone who wonders how the mind works, for anyone who has ever talked on a cell phone while driving, or cussed at some careless driver talking on a cell phone, for anyone who wonders about the validity of eyewitness testimony in criminal cases, for anyone who thinks vaccinations cause autism, for anyone who thinks listening to Mozart makes your baby smarter, and for anyone who wonders how half the people watching a video of six kids tossing two basketballs could miss the gorilla that wanders into the action.
It happened and you can see it for yourself on www.theinvisiblegorilla.com. Three kids in white shirts, three kids in black shirts. You're supposed to count the number of passes the kids in the white shirts make. A woman in a gorilla suit walks onstage, stops, pounds her chest, and walks off. Elapsed time, 9 seconds.
I read the book, then watched the video. I counted every pass, bounce pass, chest pass. Came up with 15. Bingo. Got the number right. Never saw the gorilla and I knew she was part of the video.
My brain had tricked me. I thought I was paying attention, but I wasn't. Happens all the time. To all of us. Chabris and Simons call it the illusion of attention.
This is not some highbrow psychoanalytic textbook about intuition and how it can lead us astray. Uh-uh. This is a slick, smooth, relevant book crammed with real issues involving real people, some of them famous, some of them ordinary.
Maybe you agree that it's dangerous to drive holding a cell phone to one ear. But not dangerous if you use a headset? Wrong! Talking on that phone distracts you, warps your driving skills, causes accidents.
