Monkey Business
Well, with thanks (not) to people who might have given it away by mentioning something they saw and wrote it in the comments (when all I asked for was a number), here’s the deal.
Go back and play the video again [below] and this time, look out for the person in a gorilla suit who comes in from the right of the screen, does a little dance in the middle, and then walks off screen to the left.
Didn’t see it the first time, did you? And yet I assure you it’s the same video clip.
It’s been around since 1999, but I only just saw it last week and is part of a series made by the University of Illinois Visual Cognition Lab the rest of which can be watched here. There are several like this where things happen in a video clip, and you totally miss something if you’re told to watch something in a certain way.
So come – own up – who (like me?) didn’t see the gorilla the first time round?
(Oh, and the correct number of basketball passes was 17 by the way, so congrats if you got that right!)
After living in London for the first 33 years of my life and working for the 
So for ten weeks in June, July and August 2009, I drove 20,000 miles around the the lower 48 contiguous states of the USA visiting towns and places that shared the same name as places on The London
that is surreal! totally did not see the gorilla when i watched it. fantastic!
Didn’t notice that at all! *shudder* Now I’m scared… I see gorillas everywhere…
Well I didn’t see a monkey or an ape but I DID see there were TWO basketballs and started to watch it over but went on to something else after jotting down “15.”
Thanks.
damnit! i did not see the gorilla, how cool is that!
yes there are two basketballs – one for the white team, and one for the black team. nothing unusual with that!
now to go hire a gorilla costune. walk into the house wearing it. see if Leigh notices.
I can’t count, but I can spot gorillas
)
I saw the gorilla, but I misread the question! ooopps! Damn dylexia! I think that is how you spell it?!
Is this a wind up? How did you not see the 6 foot Gorilla walk past? I also counted 17. The human mind boggles me at times.
be holy honest, I saw the gorilla and counted to 17, although there was one pass that was tipped around that almost made it look to be 18. I believe this occurs at the point where the gorilla is walking out of frame and one of the white players is standing in front of the other, making it hard to see the actual pass. I initially counted it (which would result in 18 in my count) because I just assumed they passed it being I was actually watching the gorilla costumed person…but then i realized that the same person still had the ball, so that left me at 17 pass and a gorilla
yay me!
I just noticed the gorilla as it was walking out of frame, and assumed that was the twist in this little video, but it distracted me from counting the passes.
Doh, I missed it too, too busy counting balls!
what gorilla?
Had seen this before so didn’t comment on the first post, but I didn’t see the gorilla the first time, no.
Before Christmas myself and a group of friends went for a meal in TGI Fridays. Presently I went to the gents, whereupon my visual senses were assulted by highly polished black-and-white tiles in a check pattern all over the wall, and even minature checks on the floor lino. I found it so jarring that it almost made me dizzy (not just the beer!). Some others I was dining with agreed it was pretty intense. Shortly, my mate Paul returns to the table and calmly says “did you notice the newpaper on the ceilings – it’s really cool”. And he’d been totally oblivious to the black and white tiles.
So different people notice different stuff.
Often I just don’t realise how different “my” world can be to some other peoples’.
My comment would be exactly as per Brent (#9), if I could have been bothered. However, I saw the gorilla, and thought “how tricky, trying to get me to lose count by distracting me with the gorilla” which (it seems) was not the idea at all…
And sorry for being a doofus when commenting first time round, albeit safe in the knowledge that Geoff could and would leap in to delete it