Change blindness: Past, present, and future
Open accessAbstract
Change blindness is the striking failure to see large changes that normally would be noticed easily. Over the past decade this phenomenon has greatly contributed to our understanding of attention, perception, and even consciousness. The surprising extent of change blindness explains its broad appeal, but its counterintuitive nature has also engendered confusions about the kinds of inferences that legitimately follow from it. Here we discuss the legitimate and the erroneous inferences that have been drawn, and offer a set of requirements to help separate them. In doing so, we clarify the genuine contributions of change blindness research to our understanding of visual perception and awareness, and provide a glimpse of some ways in which change blindness might shape future research.
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Most people are poor at noticing large changes in their visual field when the changing object is not the focus of attention.
“Over 10 years of evidence suggests that the majority of people are remarkably inept at recognizing large changes in their immediate visual field when the object being changed is not the absolute focus of attention (known as “change blindness”) (Simons & Rensink, 2005).”
From Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health (2010) · cites this paper as Simons & Rensink, 2005
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- Authors
- Simons, D. J., & Rensink, R. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Simons, Daniel J.
- Rensink, Ronald A.
- Venue
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2005-01
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 16-20
- ISSN
- 1364-6613 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2023889744
- Cited by
- 1,153
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 41 · 2025: 37 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 55 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 47 · 2020: 33 · 2019: 64 · 2018: 67 · 2017: 50 · 2016: 41 · 2015: 65 · 2014: 53 · 2013: 50 · 2012: 71
- FWCI
- 3.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- philarchive.org
- Locations
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Visual Attention and Saliency Detection
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- change blindness, visual perception, attention, consciousness, visual awareness, visual change detection
- MeSH terms
- Attention, Awareness, Humans, Perceptual Disorders, Photic Stimulation, Visual Perception, Signal Detection, Psychological, Recognition, Psychology
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