By Staff Reports
(Hawaii)– From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
When highly skilled radiologists check images for lung nodules, small patches of tissue that could indicate lung cancer, they look really hard – so hard that they can’t see a gorilla.
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston inserted a big picture of a gorilla in images of lungs, and about 80 percent of the radiologists did not see the gorilla.
The reason is called inattentional blindness. Researcher Trafton Drew explains:
“You tend to see what you’re looking for and you’re often effectively blinded to all things that you’re not expecting.”
Drew says we all do it. And that’s something to consider the next time you’re cruising through an intersection. Did you see the boy on the bike?
The study in the journal Psychological Science was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Learn more at healthfinder.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.