Please view this before continuing on with the post. It’s only about 90 seconds of your time.

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t see it the first time through either. Then I was listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast as they discussed this news item about radiologists so focused on finding the expected anomalies, that they completely missed the gorilla in the pic. Click to make big

I’m sure your thinking This is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with me in my life? During the discussion of the radiology experiment, Steve Novella mentioned an experiment in 1959 where a researcher dressed up as a ghost and walked across the stage during the previews of a movie. According to the story, only about half of the people even noticed it. This phenomena is called selective attention, and it has real implications for maintaining situational awareness.

Let’s think back to the Aurora theater shooting. After looking at the video and the article, ask yourself this. Would you have noticed the guy in a costume until he opened fire? Here’s the damning part about the radiology experiment. We in the self-defense community think we’ve been trained to notice such anomalies, but so did the radiologists. Instead, they only focused on what they were supposed to be looking for. For myself, I don’t think I would have noticed until the gunfire. I realize this is a possible weakness, and I will try to remedy it in the future by being more observant. This is also where planning for contingencies comes in handy. If this happens, I’m going to do this… Why? Because you’re shortening your reaction time. Selective attention means a shorter window to implement any reaction to the threat. Contingency planning means when the threat occurs, all you’re doing is implementing.

Be watchful for the gorillas out there. Some of them are dangerous.