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Christopher F. Chabris

Daniel Simons

The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us Paperback – June 7, 2011

by Christopher Chabris (Author), Daniel Simons (Author)

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Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself—and that’s a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we’re actually missing a whole lot.

Chabris and Simons combine the work of other researchers with their own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble. In the process, they explain:

• Why a company would spend billions to launch a product that its own analysts know will fail
• How a police officer could run right past a brutal assault without seeing it
• Why award-winning movies are full of editing mistakes
• What criminals have in common with chess masters
• Why measles and other childhood diseases are making a comeback
• Why money managers could learn a lot from weather forecasters

Again and again, we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions. We write traffic laws and build criminal cases on the assumption that people will notice when something unusual happens right in front of them. We’re sure we know where we were on 9/11, falsely believing that vivid memories are seared into our minds with perfect fidelity. And as a society, we spend billions on devices to train our brains because we’re continually tempted by the lure of quick fixes and effortless self-improvement.

The Invisible Gorilla reveals the myriad ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it’s much more than a catalog of human failings. Chabris and Simons explain why we succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. Ultimately, the book provides a kind of x-ray vision into our own minds, making it possible to pierce the veil of illusions that clouds our thoughts and to think clearly for perhaps the first time.

Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harmony
Publication date

June 7, 2011
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0307459667
ISBN-13

978-0307459664
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Packed with evidence from hundreds of scientific experiments, it's a persuasive, surprising and even amusing book that will have you rethinking the way you think you see the world ..."--Fort Worth Star Telegram

"Engaging and humane...THE INVISIBLE GORILLA just might teach us to be more humble, understanding and forgiving."—New York Times

"As a thoughtful introduction to a captivating discipline, the book succeeds wonderfully... readers who heed the admonitions of Chabris and Simons may be rewarded with a clearer view of the world."- Wall Street Journal

"Thought-provoking, entertaining, educational and sobering, this book is a must read for those honest enough to realize they don't or can't, know it all."—El Paso Times

"Though Chabris and Simons threaten to pull the rug of reality itself from under us, their fascinating experiments and well-chosen examples keep our feet on the ground, perhaps even more than before."- SEED Magazine

"If the authors make you second-guess yourself 10 times today, they've done their job."—Psychology Today

"THE INVISIBLE GORILLA is a humbling journey into the fallibility of our thinking ... Chabris and Simons deliver a persuasive warning that intuition often fails us ... it should be required for anyone convinced of the truth of such intuitive beliefs as the accuracy of eyewitness accounts of important events, the cause-and-effect relationship between vaccinations and autism, and the role of Mozart's music in making babies smarter."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"THE INVISIBLE GORILLA is filled with fascinating and revealing experiments that call into question assumptions we have about our mental abilities and those of others...a must-read for anyone who wants to better understand how the mind works."- Associated Press

"The illusion of attention is one of the most important, surprising, and least known flaws in human thinking. This lucid book examines it in detail." -- Nassim N. Taleb, author of THE BLACK SWAN

"[An] engaging treatise on how our intuitions often lead us astray...Illustrated with eye-opening, often humorous examples." - Booklist

"A fascinating look at little-known illusions that greatly affect our daily lives…[THE INVISIBLE GORILLA] offers surprising insights into just how clueless we are about how our minds work and how we experience the world."--Kirkus Reviews

"Full of humor and insight, this book is enlightening and entertaining ... Readers beware: your perception of everyday occurrences will be forever altered."--Library Journal

"Entertaining and illuminating ... We all have incredible confidence in the accuracy of our senses, and the tales they tell us about the world we live in. Through clever experiments and captivating stories, THE INVISIBLE GORILLA shows that our confidence is misplaced. This book is a surprising guide to everyday illusions and the trouble they can steer us into."--Dan Ariely, New York Times bestselling author of PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL

"From courtrooms to bedrooms to boardrooms, this fascinating book shows how psychological illusions bedevil every aspect of our public and private lives. An owner's manual for the human mind!"--Daniel Gilbert, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and New York Times bestselling author of STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS

“Chabris and Simons’ experiments have become classics, and their influence extends well beyond psychology, with implications for our understanding of consciousness and rationality. Having taught their research to my students at Harvard, I was eager to read THE INVISIBLE GORILLA, and the book did not disappoint."--Steven Pinker, author of HOW THE MIND WORKS and THE STUFF OF THOUGHT

“A riveting romp across the landscape of our psychological misperceptions. Read this amazing book, but not while you are doing anything else. It will change the way you see the world, and yourself. With vivid examples, sneaky experiments, and everyday experiences, Chabris and Simons convincingly show not only that our minds play tricks on us, but also, more important, that we are -- at our own peril -- programmed to resist recognizing our own blindness. In THE INVISIBLE GORILLA, you should expect the unexpected, to your very great delight. If any work of social science could be a page-turner, this is it.”--Nicholas A. Christakis, Professor, Harvard Medical School, and co-author of CONNECTED: THE SURPRISING POWER OF OUR SOCIAL NETWORKS AND HOW THEY SHAPE OUR LIVES

"Too often thinking is depicted in its extremes as the triumph or travesty of intuition. Chabris and Simons present a uniquely nuanced understanding of the power and pitfalls of perception, thought, and memory. This book will delight all who seek depth and insight into the wonder and complexities of cognition."-- Jerome Groopman, M.D., Recanati Professor, Harvard Medical School, and author of HOW DOCTORS THINK

"A breathtaking and insightful journey through the illusions that influence every moment of our lives.”--Richard Wiseman, author of QUIRKOLOGY: HOW WE DISCOVER THE BIG TRUTHS IN SMALL THINGS

"An eye-opening book. After reading THE INVISIBLE GORILLA you will look at yourself -- and the world around you -- differently. Like its authors, the book is both funny and smart, filled with insights into the everyday illusions that we all walk around with. No matter what your job is or what you do in life, you will learn something from this book."--Joseph T. Hallinan, Pulitizer Prize winning author of WHY WE MAKE MISTAKES

“Everyday illusions trick us into thinking that we see –and know more -- than we really do, and that we can predict the future when we can’t. THE INVISIBLE GORILLA teaches us exactly why, and it does so in an incredibly engaging way. Chabris and Simons provide terrific tips on how to cast off our illusions and get things right. Whether you’re a driver wanting to steer clear of oncoming motorcycles, a radiologist hoping to spot every tumor, or just an average person curious about how your mind really works, this is a must-read.”-- Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D, Distinguished Professor, University of California–Irvine, and author of MEMORY and EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

"Cognitive scientists Chris Chabris and Dan Simons deliver an entertaining tour of the many ways our brains mislead us every day. THE INVISIBLE GORILLA is engaging, accurate, and packed with real-world examples -- some of which made me laugh out loud. Read it to find out why weathermen might make good money managers, and what Homer Simpson can teach you about thinking clearly."--Sandra Aamodt, Ph.D., co-author of WELCOME TO YOUR BRAIN and former Editor, Nature Neuroscience

"THE INVISIBLE GORILLA is not just witty and engaging but also insightful. The authors offer a fascinating set of examples that show how poorly we understand the limitations of our own minds in business, medicine, law enforcement, journalism--and everyday life. Reading this book won't cure you of all these limitations, but it will at least help you recognize and compensate for them."
--Thomas W. Malone, author of THE FUTURE OF WORK and Founder of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence

"In the long history of psychology a handful of experiments stand out as epochal in their impact on our understanding of human behavior—Milgram's obedience to authority shock experiments, Zimbardo's role playing prison experiment, Asch's conformity experiments, and Harlow's baby monkey experiments. In that league is the now-famous "gorilla" experiment by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, demonstrating how blind we all are to objects clearly in our midst, and especially how unreliable eyewitness testimony is in any criminal investigation (or any other walk of life). THE INVISIBLE GORILLA should be required reading by every judge and jury member in our criminal justice system, along with every battlefield commander, corporate CEO, member of Congress, and, well, you and I...because the mental illusions so wonderfully explicated in this book can fool every one of us."--Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic magazine, monthly columnist for Scientific American, and the author of WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS

“It isn't often you come across a book that is rigorous but also witty, one that is sound science but also relevant to everyday life -- but here it is! Clever, illuminating, by turns shocking and delightful, this book, if you take it to heart, will change a lot of your bad habits and could even save your life."--Margaret Heffernan, CEO and author of WOMEN ON TOP

“Wonderfully refreshing…THE INVISIBLE GORILLA makes us smarter by reminding us how little we know. Through a lively tour of the brain's blind spots, this book will change the way you drive your car, hire your employees and invest your money.”
--Amanda Ripley, Senior Writer for Time magazine and author of THE UNTHINKABLE

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER CHABRIS and DANIEL SIMONS are cognitive psychologists who have each received accolades for their research on a wide range of topics. Their “Gorillas in Our Midst” study reveals the dark side of our ability to pay attention and has quickly become one of the best-known experiments in all of psychology; it inspired a stage play and was even discussed by characters on C.S.I. Chabris, who received his Ph.D. from Harvard, is a psychology professor at Union College in New York. Simons, who received his Ph.D. from Cornell, is a psychology professor at the University of Illinois.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harmony; Reprint edition (June 7, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0307459667
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307459664
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #55,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #229 in Creativity (Books)
- #265 in Cognitive Psychology (Books)
- #1,751 in Personal Transformation Self-Help

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Christopher F. Chabris
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Christopher Chabris received his B.A. in computer science and his Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University, where he was also a Lecturer and Research Associate for many years. He is now Assistant Professor of Psychology at Union College in Schenectady, New York, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Neurology at Albany Medical College, and a Visiting Scholar at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. His research focuses on two main areas: how people differ from one another in mental abilities and patterns of behavior, and how cognitive illusions affect our decisions. He has published papers on a diverse array of topics, including human intelligence, beauty and the brain, face recognition, the Mozart effect, group performance, and visual cognition. Chris writes occasionally for the Wall Street Journal, and he is also a chess master and poker amateur.
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Daniel Simons
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Daniel Simons is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois where he also has appointments in the Gies College of Business and the Sandage Department of Advertising. His first book, co-authored with Christopher Chabris, is titled "The Invisible Gorilla." Their second book, "Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken In And What We Can Do About It" will be published by Basic Books on July 11, 2023. Simons received his B.A. from Carleton College and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. After five years on the faculty at Harvard University, he moved to Illinois in 2002. His scholarly research focuses on the limits of human perception, memory, and awareness, and he is best known for his research that showing people are far less aware of their visual surroundings than they think. In addition to a number of academic honors and awards, he and Chabris jointly received the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology—an award for research that first makes you laugh and then makes you think—for showing that it's possible to hide a "gorilla" in plain sight. His research appears regularly in the popular media (and top scientific journals), and his studies and demonstrations have been exhibited dozens of science museums worldwide.
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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

922 global ratings

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4 star		17%
3 star		7%
2 star		2%
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Sakuteiki

humbling Confident cryptomnesia, self deception, belief and expectation overpowering what is right before my eyes

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 25, 2018

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To see what is right in front of one's eyes needs constant struggle. George Orwell

I was tickled to read about how I self delude daily in complacent mindless non-thinking. But other authors use a graphic novel approach which is more visually stimulating, for example:

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative Austin Kleon
Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir Roz Chast mental physical social spiritual and financial realities of end of life decisions
An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments cartoon version of
Attacking Faulty Reasoning T Edward Damer.

I enjoy both text and visual formats of presenting data
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Edward Tufte.
When I do not emotionally link with a write
Writing Alone and with Others Pat Schneider text for the Amherst Writing Initiative
I find that following the Great Books' Shared Inquiry process
Great Books of the Western World University of Chicago selections 1930s
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading Mortimer Adler
quite useful.
I read the selection twice. The first time I highlight and underline, write questions in the margin: factual questions (investigative journalist what when why where how who), interpretive questions (what did that mean? why the use of that word, that color? why did the author say it in that way? what colors come to mind as I read? what do I think the author is trying to imply? which forms the bulk of my queries), evaluative questions (very brief assessment of emotional responses, did the author succeed in conveying what I perceive was the author's goal with producing the work? did I like it? did I learn something?)
After a first read, when I am convinced, alarmingly, that I understand what is happening in the write, I reread and repeat the process using a different color pencil. Only on second reading do I realize that I never really understood what I read the first time.

Then I meet with a Great Books Group who have shared the exact same text, and the exact same process in solitude, and we share questions. I am shocked, informed, and my mind is broadened by the wealth of unexpected responses others provide to what I thought was a cut and dried conclusion, my conclusion. As I have engaged with this process over the years, from school age when my parents were Great Books Leaders, to my 40s when a group of friends formed a Great Books Group, to now in our 70s and 80s as we are rereading these oldies but goodies I am discovering ever new depths of understanding, and entirely different understandings of classic writes.

I apply the same read it twice and think about it alone before discussing with others approach to contemporary writes
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Penguin Classics) Hannah Arendt.

But the most informative discussions surround decades old readings. Since I retain my old books, underlining margin notes and all, I can see how my thinking has evolved with time. More particularly I see how arrogance, self importance, confidence (extrovert delusion) of youth is embarrassingly revealed in my portentous former notations.

With age I am growing more and more humble, as memories of puerile strutting self assurance resurface.
Susan Cain relates the experience of high school reunions: you notice many of your classmates as more introverted than you remember, quieter, more self contained, less in need of excitement. . . more emotionally stable, agreeable, conscientious . . . Psychologists call this "intrinsic maturation." p318
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking Susan Cain
Back to the Future 30th Anniversary Trilogy Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd
fascinating bonus disc features, interviews with the actors in the present, commentary behind each of the 3 episodes on what was in the minds of the film producers at the time, who the characters were based on, making of featurette.

The same process can be seen in the PBS series about Queen Victoria her husband Albert, her Prime Ministers and growing oneself up to meet the challenges of governance
Masterpiece: Victoria - Seasons 1 & 2 DVD Set With Bonus Self-Portrait Postcard

I read the footnotes, appendices and look up references as questions arise and find more than sufficient to keep my curiosity engaged for which I grant it 5*.

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W. Wilt

Just How Blind Can Humans Be?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 11, 2014

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Turns out, VERY. Parallel-processing, multi-tasking so's to be able to drive safely whilst arguing with someone on your cell phone. NOT. Susceptible to not-even-hypnotic suggestion? Like waiter off a juke's rack (of 45s). All it takes to get people to believe something is to: Repeat it, repeatedly, all over again; repeat it loudly (shouters given more credence than whisperers--and how can you believe a whisperer who whispers out of the side of his mouth (think Dick Cheney)?) Ah, what fools we mortals be (someone said that, right?)

Believe someone because they're CONFIDENT." (That's why we have the phrase "confidence men" (and women--sorry, no intention to diss).

Believe that we know what happened in the middle of a sequence because we've seen the beginning and end. Believe that just because something happened after something else, the first thing caused the second. Even the Romans knew about this one--Post hoc, ergo proper hoc. (This happened after that, therefore that caused this.) And, oh yeah, can't forget that we think we remember what we observe. Turns out, we believe more what we've made up about what we've observed than we believe the facts (if any) themselves.

And we believe that "One Case Doth An Epidemic Make." Think "They took the babies out of the incubators and left them to die on the cold concrete floor [of that Kuwaiti neo-nate ward]. Great Congressional Drama. Great writing and coaching by Hill & Knowlton, Propagandists to the world (and any sitting government). But not an iota of truth to it.

And don't lets get started on 9/11 (the planes went 'VROOM' right into the towers, and my motorcycle T-shirt tells me that this weakened the structure and so the towers collapsed'." Sandy Hook (and all the other school-shootings), Boston Marathon, RFK, JFK, Chem-Trails (Look! Up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's super-tanker ChemTrails. (Airborne refueling tankers like K-10s, is it, converted first to spray Agent Orange in Indochina, then converted to spray today's slurry of highest-tech aluminum nano-particulates--a slow death by Alzheimer's as the aluminum builds up in the brain when we breathe this stuff in, drink it in, ingest it with our food. But never tested for toxic effects on life on Earth. And, because no one in government can look up, in the sky, it's not happening every day, all over the US and greater World. Just remember to look, up in the sky, a couple of times a day. You'll see the artistry of The Sky Spiders, weaving their webs of poison in the sky, unless you believe we must always walk with our eyes looking no farther than our toes.)

At any rate, this well-written piece documents just how easy it is to fool all of the people most, if not all, of the time. It doesn't take much work at all, we're so easily gulled, by our very wiring (synapses in the brain), our "instincts," our "breeding." And take a look at the Utube recreations of these experiments.

[As I was told by my first girlfriend ever, her dad, an Army DJ during the Korean Use-up-parts-and-bodies-then-buy/draft-some-more, used to note the power of breeding and horticulture when he extolled the virtues of "Genuine Government Issue Coffee, harvested from the shores of Lake Latrine, with the bitterness bred in the bean." (I don't think serving it in greasy, but stainless, steel canteen cups helped the flavor any. (Try to wash out your cup with a bar of brown soap and a helmet-full of cold water.)]

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frankie loves books

No page numbers, badly scanned copy of an e-book - copyright issue?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 14, 2020

Verified Purchase

I once owned an original version of this book which is amazing. This one however is a facsimile copy badly scanned and printed without page nos. and several pages cropped at the bottom so several lines are chopped in half. The back page states 'printed by Amazon in the UK' and the back cover shows this as an e-book. My order was for an original Harper Collins paperback not an Amazon Print-On-Demand scan/scam. Now I have to return this rubbish from abroad and pay the postage! This is the second badly produced book (printed by Amazon) that I have received in one week! There is either a serious breach of copyright law or a total disregard for the original producers and the customer. Oh yes, there are also greasy finger marks on the front cover - charming!

4 people found this helpful

Jack

Well written though somewhat deflating!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 12, 2018

Verified Purchase

This popular psychology book is named after the well-known experiment conducted by the authors in which subjects were asked to count the number of basketball passes during a short video of two teams passing a ball around. During the video, a woman dressed in a gorilla suit comes onto the court, beats her chest, and wanders off, which half the subjects failed to notice. In short, we can miss the unexpected when we are not looking for it, even when it occurs directly in front of us, sometimes with fatal consequences.

Other chapters focus on our the fact that our memories are much more fallible than we think they are, even for vividly 'remembered' events such as where we were when we first heard about the 2001 terrorist attack on New York; that we are more confident than we should be and are suckers for others exuding confidence; that even experts sometimes know and understand much less than they think they do; that we spot patterns when none exist, and when they do exist, we mistake correlation and consecutive events with causation; that our intuitions are often way out; and finally there are no quick fixes that will make our minds more efficient, regardless of the claims made about the virtues of Sudoku and listening to Mozart.

The book is well written with plenty of interesting examples of each of the above phenomena with a number of 'try this at home' exercises (the original Invisible Gorilla video is also on YouTube). Although some of the book will appear to be covering the bleeding obvious to some people and it seems that there's not much we can do to prevent being misled by our faulty intuition and fallible judgements apart from be vigilant and know our weaknesses, occasionally the book does provide a helpful bit of advice. Regarding looking after our minds as we get old, simply learning that the best thing to do may well be physical rather than mental exercise was worth the price of the book, I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in how our minds work and as a primer for people about to start a course on psychology.

5 people found this helpful

Rebecca

Never seen a book with no page numbers before. Does this speak to the quality of the book? Maybe.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 29, 2020

Verified Purchase

Couldn't believe my eyes. There are literally no page numbers in this book, and some pages actually cut off text at the bottom of the page (see photos). I thought, it must be self-published, but nope it says HarperCollins. What in the actual hell?! And the book itself? Lots of "case studies" but not enough science to actually prove intuition gets it wrong. It seems to be a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the of what intuition actually is. And they define intuition on page...oh, wait...

2 people found this helpful

Lee

Counter-intuition...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 5, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is a difficult subject to grasp, yet this book delivers it with such ease, offering numerous intuitive examples to help the reader along the road to better data processing.

drijackson

Well written and full of useful insights

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 25, 2012

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed this book having come to it merely because I had been fooled by the gorilla video. The authors take you through a series of important areas which admittedly are really interesting to an old medic like myself. However the lessons are important for us all and I urge people to read this book.

2 people found this helpful

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