Summary: Current Biology 21, 1­4, January 25, 2011 ª2011 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2010.12.019
Report
Motion Silences Awareness
of Visual Change
Jordan W. Suchow1,* and George A. Alvarez1
1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge,
MA 02138, USA
Summary
Loud bangs, bright flashes, and intense shocks capture
attention, but other changes--even those of similar magni-
tude--can go unnoticed. Demonstrations of change blind-
ness have shown that observers fail to detect substantial
alterations to a scene when distracted by an irrelevant flash,
or when the alterations happen gradually [1­5]. Here, we
show that objects changing in hue, luminance, size, or shape
appear to stop changing when they move. This motion-
induced failure to detect change, silencing, persists even
though the observer attends to the objects, knows that
they are changing, and can make veridical judgments about
their current state. Silencing demonstrates the tight

Source: Alvarez, George A. - Department of Psychology, Harvard University

Collections: Biology and Medicine