# Encourage Scientific Inquiry

## The Invisible Gorilla

> Would you spot a gorilla if it walked right across the screen? If you think the answer is an obvious “yes,” think again.
>
> In 1999, psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons conducted a now-famous experiment to illustrate the phenomenon of inattentional blindness.13 Participants were asked to watch a video in which two teams, one dressed in white and the other in black, passed basketballs back and forth. The task was simple: count the number of passes made by the team in white. Focused on this task, many viewers failed to notice something unusual—a person in a gorilla suit walking into the frame, beating their chest, and then walking off-screen. When asked afterward, most participants were shocked to learn that they had missed such an obvious detail.
>
> The invisible gorilla serves as a powerful metaphor for ethical inattentional blindness in decision-making.
>
> <https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/philosophy/system-1-and-system-2-thinking>
