The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us Review
This book succeeds both as a satisfying read and as a public service. It deals competently with several aspects of an intriguing field, and does so pleasantly and lightly without being superficial. As such it is a fine specimen of the better class of popular science literature that nowadays sets a daunting standard to would-be authors in the genre. The authors write unpretentiously but confidently. They know and respect their subject and they show respect for their readers as well. They care more for clarity and comprehension than for flattery or condescension. Though I have never met either author the book is so naturally written that it gives me an eerie impression of a personal conversation. In fact they write so unaffectedly that many readers might well fall into the trap of undervaluing the substance of the material.
That material is in fact important, unobvious and profound. Skim the book too lightly and you are guaranteed to fall victim to a class of illusion that the authors might well consider including in a future work: the illusion of complete comprehension; that comforting feeling one gets when one has read through a textbook without working one's way through, only to discover when writing an examination or presenting a lecture, just how inadequate an understanding one had achieved.
The theme of the book is "everyday illusions". I will not discuss the title illusion of "The Invisible Gorilla" for fear of spoiling the discussion for those who do not recognise the allusion, though it has enjoyed enough exposure in recent years, goodness knows. Suffice to say that the illusions in question have very little to do with the popular visual and verbal puzzles that have been standard fare in books for centuries, and more recently in technological media such as films and online. Instead they deal firstly with our limited ability to observe and deal with things that no reasonable person would have considered himself capable of overlooking, things that can be matters of life or death. Some are in fact illusions that certainly have caused a shocking number of people to lose their lives or freedom unjustly and continue to do so year after year.
They discuss another class of illusion related to unjustified confidence in assessing one's own ability, and either over- or under-rating the ability of other people on the basis of their apparent confidence.
Well, that sounds simple enough...
Doesn't it?
The book discusses an entire class of illusions related to competence in management and forecasting, to the planning and analysis of research projects, and to jumping to conclusions. On this I say nothing, having seen too many damning examples myself. How many of such examples might or might not have involved me, and how much or how little I profited from the experiences, is no one's business but my own.
The book is not one interminable Jeremiad; though serious it is not solemn. It is in fact decidedly pleasantly, even cheerfully, written. Nor does it convey a counsel of despair. Without emulating fashionable mindless self-help manuals for the mindless, it concludes with a brief but constructive discussion of how to deal with our own human limitations and make the most of internal resources as well as external resources at our disposal.
In short, get the book. Read it. Think. Wait. Then read it again. You will profit no one more than yourself, and enjoyably at that.
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The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us Overview
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.
The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us Specifications
Tom Vanderbilt Reviews The Invisible GorillaTom Vanderbilt writes on design, technology, architecture, science, and many other topics. He is author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) published in 2008 by Alfred A. Knopf, and Survival City: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America, published in 2002 by Princeton Architectural Press. He is contributing editor to I.D. and Print magazines, contributing writer at Design Observer, and writes for many publications, ranging from Wired to the New York Times to Men's Vogue to the Wilson Quarterly. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Do you remember when you first saw--or more likely, didn’t see--the gorilla? For me it was one afternoon a number of years ago when I clicked open one of those noxious-but-irresistible forwarded emails ("You Won’t Believe Your Eyes!"). The task was simple--count the number of passes in a tight cluster of basketball players--but the ensuing result was astonishing: As I dutifully (and correctly) tracked the number of passes made, a guy in a gorilla suit had strolled into the center, beat his chest, and sauntered off. But I never saw the gorilla. And I was hardly alone.
The video, which went on to become a global viral sensation, brought "inattentional blindness"--a once comparatively obscure interest of cognitive psychologists--into striking relief. Here was a dramatic reminder that looking is not necessarily seeing, that “paying” attention to one thing might come at the cost of missing another altogether. No one was more taken with the experience than the authors of the original study, Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, as they recount in their new--and, dare I say, eye-opening--book, The Invisible Gorilla. "The fact that people miss things is important," they write, "but what impressed us even more was the surprise people showed when they realized what they had missed."
The Invisible Gorilla uses that ersatz primate as a departure point (and overarching metaphor) for exploring the myriad of other illusions, perceptual or otherwise, that we encounter in everyday life--and our often complete lack of awareness as we do so. These "gorillas" are lurking everywhere--from the (often false) memories we think we have to the futures we think we can anticipate to the cause-and-effect chains we feel must exist. Writing with authority, clarity, and a healthy dose of skepticism, Simons and Chabris explore why these illusions persist--and, indeed, seem to multiply in the modern world--and how we might work to avoid them. Alas, there are no easy solutions--doing crosswords to stave off cognitive decline in one’s dotage may simply make you better at doing crosswords. But looking for those "gorillas in our midst" is as rewarding as actually finding them.
(Photo © Kate Burton)
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Customer Reviews
Disappointed - J. Reicherts - minneapolis, mn, usa
Other than a few interesting experiments, this book lacked an real substance. I was really hoping for more. The writing style was bland, and the authors obvious political views were unnecessarily present throughout. Also it was made clear that anyone who questions either any discrepancies regarding 911, or vaccinations, is to be considered a nut job.
The first thing i noticed about this book that struck me, was being this is a book on psychology and studies, the authors describing their gorilla experiment refer to "around half" of the people didn't see the gorilla. "around half" is even more vague a statement than "nearly" or "almost". just my opinion but i thought that was pretty lame given the nature of the sort of book.
use the insights in your daily thinking - R. M. Williams - tucson, arizona USA
illusions of attention, memory, confidence, knowledge, cause, potential. excellent well organized, informative, important book.
each chapter is an illusion caused by our mental structures, like optical illusions effect our perception, a must read for anyone interested in clearer thinking, which ought to be everyone. one of those books you wish you could internalize entirely, in any case, useful and important insights to learn and use-daily.
each chapter presents an illusion, like the gorilla in the basketball passings video. presents the illusion, then using experimental results and interesting examples shows us what the illusion is and how it works. excellent introduction with enough footnotes to get into the literature, the best of popular science writing.
i took notes, would have appreciated marking up my own copy, a worth owning book. chapters are independent, able to be profitably read in any order, with a nice summary conclusion. i'd read the first few pages of each chapter to get an idea of whether the book is one for you, an odd way to do it, but reflective of the book's organization, try it you might get drawn into it....
Fantastic - providing clarity on illusions we live with every day - Rick Steele - Chester, CT
An absolutely fantastic book with real data supporting real illusions we live with every day. An easy entertaining read that flies like a good fiction novel.
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Thomas L. Friedman's reporter's curiosity and his ability to recognize the patterns behind the most complex global developments have made him one of the most entertaining and authoritative sources for information about the wider world we live in, both as the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times and as the author of landmark books like From Beirut to Jerusalem and The Lexus and the Olive Tree. They also make him an endlessly fascinating conversation partner, and we've now had the chance to talk to him about The World Is Flat twice. Read our original interview with him following the publication of the first edition of The World Is Flat to learn why there's almost no one from Washington, D.C., listed in the index of a book about the global economy, and what his one-plank platform for president would be. (Hint: his bumper stickers would say, "Can You Hear Me Now?") 
