Change Blindness Study

Furthermore, change blindness has been detected in many other studies. In most cases, observers do not notice changes that are introduced, particularly when these changes occur during disruptions such a blank screen, a blink or an eye movement (Simons). Change blindness occurs whenever attention is diverted from the change signal. Additionally, changes to objects that are significant to the meaning of the scene or changes to visually distinctive objects are detected more rapidly than other changes. Therefore, attention may be necessary for change detection with change to unattended objects going unnoticed.
Ball (x) presents an experiment that demonstrates that change blindness can be induced. Moreover,
Utochkin found that participants showed significant change blindness. However, the magnitude of change blindness depends largely on the location of the change. In other words, changes that occur in the areas of interest can be identified much faster and are far more accurate than objects that change when placed in areas of marginal interest (Utochkin, x; Turatto, M & Bridgeman, B, x; Simons x). This is consistent with suggestions made by Turatto & Bridgeman 2005 and Simons.
Additionally, Hebranson (x) states that although change blindness has been studied in humans we do not know if this is a phenomenon that also affects other animals.
He goes on to argue that investigation of change blindness in a non-human species may prove to be valuable as is it may provide some insight into the cause of change blindness. In the study conducted by Hebranson, pigeons were worse at detecting changes if the displays were separated by a blank image. This result is consistent with the general pattern seen in studies of change blindness in humans. In conclusion, it could be argued that animal models of attention can be valuable research
tools.
Simons (1998) conducted a study where an experimental initiated a conversation with a pedestrian. During the course of this interaction, the experimenter (A) was replaced with another (B). Although many aspects of experimenter A and experimenter B were different. For example, height, clothing, voice etc., only half of the pedestrians noticed the switch. This demonstrates that provided the meaning of the scene remained unchanged, large changes can escape detection even when they occur in a real world reaction. This indicates that we are never completely aware of the environment that surrounds us. Therefore, it can be said that the brain represents only a few objects at a time, namely those currently in the focus of attention (Landman). Landman also states that change detection improves when the location of a possible change was cued during the interval.