Toupee or not toupee? The role of instructional set, centrality, and relevance in change blindness

Authors: Pearson, Pauline; Schaefer, Evelyn

Source: Visual Cognition, Volume 12, Number 8, November 2005 , pp. 1528-1543(16)

Publisher: Psychology Press, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

The influence of instructional set, centrality, and relevance on change blindness was examined. In a one‐shot paradigm, participants reported alterations of items across pairs of driving scenes under two different instructional conditions. Alterations involved either relocations or disappearances of the same items and included driving‐relevant and driving‐irrelevant alterations to items of central and marginal interest. Three main findings emerged: Centrality was not a function of driving relevance/meaningfulness, disappearances of central interest items were identified significantly more often than positional changes to them, and instructions highlighting the importance of the task to driving attenuated change blindness. The possible role of a simple listing strategy in mediating successful identification of alterations is discussed. Together, the findings demonstrate that cognitive factors play an important role in change blindness.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13506280444000814

Affiliations: 1: Department of Psychology, University of Winnipeg, Canada

Publication date: 2005-11-01

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