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Concept

Inattentional blindness

Two individuals walk past each other in a minimalist setting, with one person seemingly unaware of the other due to their focused gaze on a device, illustrating the concept of inattentional blindness.

The failure to notice a fully visible but unexpected object or event when attention is occupied elsewhere. Distinct from change blindness in that nothing changes — the missed stimulus is continuously present — but driven by the same underlying limit on conscious visual processing. The invisible gorilla study is its most cited demonstration; the effect has been replicated in radiologists missing a gorilla pasted into a CT scan.

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